Spot of the 22nd Ji.hlava IDFF

Artist, revolutionary and a trend-setter in the world of cinema, the great Jean-Luc Godard left us on September 2022 (a day before my birthday actually) and what stays with us is a gallery of countless images, sounds, effects and emotions in pictures of many different genres such as "Breathless", "Contempt", "Pierrot Le Fou" and many others, in between 1960 up until 2018 with his last "The Image Book". But the very last credit of his was this promotional campaign to a documentary festival that happened in late 2018.

This one-minute short captured through a phone and made in just one take reveals the full scope of Godard's use of many different medias to present his idea to the world. He started with celluloid and those big camera, evolved to the world of video, moved to the digital and then ended with a smartphone video. Always testing the power of different medias, playing with both images and sounds, he always broke some barriers in the world of cinema. It's fascinating to see such transition, and fans of the l'enfant terrible of French cinema will be delighted in establishing comparisons and have some deep thoughts about such evolution.

Truth be told, though I had seen this a couple of times, I still can form a whole positive idea about it. Godard films himself scrolling through photos on his IPhone, it's all very fast and random, as he narrates words and thoughts that keep being cut mid-sentence whenever he speeds up the pictures, sometimes he stops then move ahead. Like many of art projects, he throws a thought then moves ahead with another idea and it's up to us to form a connection between different ideas. He plays with the phone speeding up the images and the sound follows exactly the way he handles the phone up until the very last image of a selfie of his. If the idea is to invite audiences to attend the festival it doesn't work at all, it just shows that he was presenting his own reality and leaving this register for posterity which reflects the exact notion of what documentaries are all about. Cool idea but with a strange execution.

A strange swan song but a quite commendable, decent and good experience to be seen. It's not the ideal final film of a genius of his position in the world of cinema but it's manageable - at least the very last shot brings some deep emotion specially now that the man is gone. Obvious that he has plenty of better works but he also had some clunkers along the way (that 2015 short film where he accepted a prize was an insane rambling that didn't seem like an acceptance speech at all). Still a very valid idea though it can leave viewers wondering what's the real goal he was aiming at. Au revoir, monsieur! 6/10.