Anna Karina, muse of the French new wave.

“She’s like a plant. She moves. She loves life. She’s alive.” - Jean Claude Brialy

Muse of the new wave, a title that is small for the model, actress, director and screenwriter who influenced French cinema in great proportions. For me Anna is a great inspiration for any woman passionate about cinema, from her remarkable and distinctive appearance and style, to her great participations in great movies. His journey with Jean Luc Godard was impressive, with great naturalness to represent particular characters.

My favorite, Nana, protagonist of the story of "Living your life". A young woman who decides to pursue her dream as an actress and ends up prostituting herself. As i published in Letterboxd, Anna's performance in that film is so natural that it makes you empathize with the protagonist, feel with her the whole journey of her story. Breaking the fourth wall makes you an accomplice of his life, of his regret. In my favorite movie, "A woman is a woman," she gives life to Angela, a young Parisian cabaret dancer who wants to have a baby, even though her partner does not agree. During this film she shows us a youthful and fresh side, with an overwhelming charisma that earned her a Silver Bear at the Berlin International Festival. The new face of a cinema that was gradually taking place despite the traditions in the cinematography of France at the time. Anna Karina began to be recognized for her spectacular talent and style, accompanied by her then spouse Jean Luc Godard, who in his films exploited her ability.

Anna Karina with Jean Claude Brialy on the set of “A woman is a woman”.

Personally, I love how close I feel to Anna Karina as a woman's role to follow. Iconic women like Marilyn Monroe, become an ideal that is not easy to achieve, a type of sensual woman, blonde, ephemeral, a unique and unparalleled "blonde bombshell", almost a goddess. While Anna has an appearance and a style that for our present is simple to replicate and feel represented. At a time when as teenagers and young adults we seek inspiration in issues of clothing, makeup, profession or even with similar life stories of overcoming that lead one to have a certain rooted hope of that role to follow, she is more accessible to this. In aesthetic issues, her looks are unsurpassed, her characteristic bangs and long brown hair, her pronounced makeup in the eyes, and outfits that show the versatility within her own imprint given since her beginnings, she became a great icon for inspirations to French looks of the sixties. Striped prints, dresses with delicate and feminine laces and finishes, hair accessories, low heels or ballet flats and a lot of red. With her garments she reflected her personal growth, which could be seen through the textures and patterns chosen essentially during the decades of the sixties and seventies. In matters of her personal life, she was a woman who always sought to improve herself and open new doors, at only 17 years old she decided to leave her homeland Denmark, to embark on a new course towards France. She worked for the big fashion houses, modeling their fascinating garments. It was in this area that she met Coco Chanel, for whom she worked, and assigned her her stage name that she would take all her life.

Anna Karina wearing a Chanel cocktail dress, photographed by Frank Horvat for Jours de France, 1959.

Then in 1959 she met Jean Luc Godard, who in addition to later becoming her husband, was her artistic collaborator, who herself in an interview in 1962 during the filming of "Living her life" says that I taught her many things. From that moment on she would stand out with her acting skills, leaving us unforgettable stories such as "A woman is a woman", "Living her life", "Alphaville", "Pierrot the crazy", "Band apart" and "The religious" among many of her films.

I repeat, muse of the new wave, a title that is too small for a great woman like Anna Karina.

Anna on the set of “Pierrot le fou”.