Film socialisme

Far to be a Godard admirer, I was real seduced by this film, a mix of cultural references about Mediteranean area, a good pledge for language as obstacle of understanding, eccentric, innovative, absurd in essence, proposing characters and theirs memories and believes , but not exactly a story.

A film about time and masks and past and facts as pieces of puzzle , it is a provocative invitation to viewer to create his explanations or - and doubts.

For me, the old watch is the main scene defining this film who remains a clash by fragments of doczmentary, stains of kitsch and rediscover of past. All, in essence, in the most honest manner.

I'll admit that I've only seen a handful of Jean-Luc Godard's movies. "Film socialisme" is the latest. Very bizarre movie. In fact, it doesn't really emphasize a plot. It's hard to tell what the movie's emphasis is supposed to be, with the focus on a group of people aboard a cruise ship in the Mediterranean. Maybe Godard wanted to address the use of certain places as tourist meccas, but I couldn't be certain. With current events in the world, it's probably significant that the movie includes Palestine.

I'd like to see the rest of Godard's movies, but I doubt that I'll ever be able to truly understand what sort of point he was trying to make with this one.

Watch for singer-songwriter Patti Smith in a brief appearance.

A Jean-Luc Godard double feature for me this evening. The first was Alphaville. This film, reported to be Godard's last, is a far cry from that.

It was shot entirely in digital, and the colors are breathtaking. It was meant to be seen in the theater, according to Godard, but I had to settle for video. There are numerous technical "glitches" in the film, and they were meant to be there.

Most of the film's text is in French with a smattering of German, Russian, Arabic, Hebrew, Latin, and Greek. Godard added subtitles in what he termed "Navajo English" at the bottom of the frame, which were as unhelpful as they were meant to be. The film is about a failure to communicate.

This is one of those films where the critics are far more enamored than the general populace. It is considered one of the top films of 2011 - almost the top ten. The people would disagree.

It was eagerly awaited for years,the trailer which was the whole film in fast motion looked ravishing, and it seemed as if in this,perhaps his last film,Godard would deliver his final testament,a summation of all the themes which have run through his work for the last fifty years.From the beginning it looks absolutely stunning.In its high def cinematography the colours are gorgeous,the Mediterranean setting recalling that of Le Mépris ,but whereas the latter film was a profound meditation on European culture and civilisation,here the characters spout banal platitudes about politics or philosophy as the ship sails along past various cities; in the Spanish section there is a scene of a bullfight,in the Italian section a clip from a Rossellini film,it's that predictable.

In the final section the film switches to one of Godard's favourite subjects,the daily routine of a family with young children who run a petrol station and have for no apparent reason a pet llama.Here finally the film shows some kind of rapport with its characters but it is already too late.Yet despite its faults it still exhibits all the hallmarks of Godard's style,the brilliance of his framing and editing,the crucial way sound plays against image,but the feeling persists that perhaps he has no longer anything to say.

Jean-Luc Godard is a reference in cinema and changed the art fifty years ago with a unique challenging style that defied current esthetics and etiquette.

His latest work can be described more as an eclectic experiment than any enduring piece of cinema, but it serves to show his mastery of the art and his ability to dissect it in its most basic components before trying to create a different, distinct experience for the viewer. He plays with themes, locations, styles and intermingles with little restriction photos, videos, ambient sounds, silence, music, narrations, monologues, dialogues to delves into a dream-like undefined cinematic discussion.

The film does not quite work as a whole, precisely from this lack of focus, but some of the imagery (some sharp and some out of focus, some old and some new, some seemingly meaningless and some full of allegories, etc.), dialogues (existential, simple, social, revolutionary) and intertitles do reach a cord and will be remembered subconsciously or consciously. It's lack of clear content or continuity should not take away from it's task of deconstruction and desire to destabilise our current comforts. In that aspect, Godard grabs the rug under conventional cinema and pulls very hard to make it topple over dumbfounded and confused.

There are three segments, each shorter than the previous, but besides being glad to finally leave this seemingly derelict boat and to briefly know a fictional philosophising family, there is not enough distinction between the segments to warrant further feedback at this point. Only that as Godard's life perhaps, and exemplified in the crafty ancient time-telling device in segment #2, time is getting shorter...

Maybe we'll get it right some day, may be one of many messages of this remue-méninges.