Sansa Siegfried

After the first 20 minutes of Sansa, you may begin to question whether you have forgotten about downing a bottle of JD before entering the theatre, as the choppy, documentary-style film shooting makes you feel like grasping for the floor and hanging on with both hands. If you're planning on taking a trip to the theatre to see Sansa, you better plan on packing enough Gravol to last through all 115 minutes. The confusing plot centres on the title character Sansa (Roschdy Zem), an Italian hustler-of-all-trades and would-be artist who drifts from country to country, crossing Europe, Japan and Africa. Falling in love with random women he follows uninvited into business meetings, outbound trains, etc., in the wink of an eye. When Sansa's ill-mannered curiosity finds him centre stage in a professional ballet rehearsal, the moody maestro leading the orchestra reprimands then later befriends him. The aged Click (Ivry Gitlis), himself a violin virtuoso, is really the only other sustained character in the film. His friendship with Sansa is anchored on their mutual fixation for flirting with every woman walking. Click shows a joie de vivre that would be endearing were he not such an incorrigible letch. The character of Sansa is interesting in his need to be a wanderer, but he doesn't show enough consideration for others to make himself appealing, or less shallow. What French-born director Siegfried apparently did with aplomb for his first feature film Louise (Take 2), in which a young woman wanders through Paris, he misses with Sansa. Artistic shots of various locales in the countries Sansa visits get tiresome, as the plot is thinly stretched over two hours. And the immature characters are not enough to make the nauseous worth while. (Vagabondages/Initial/Arte France/Mate)