Pierrot le fou

Ferdinand is a.k.a. Pierrot, but just to Marianne, as he's her beau, though he starts off with his wife, but cannot take the married strife, so he deserts her, and they form a new combo. Together they evade the OAS, it's not the first time she's been caught in such a mess, heading south to towards the sea, committing crimes, they run and flee, a small island gives them time, for their sad tryst. Marianne puts a dwarf terrorist in his place, the lost loves re-find each other, and a suitcase, it goes to pot, there are some shots, it's a Godard type of plot, and it blows up in Pierrot's sullen face.

Two great actors talking in the directors tongue but not able to communicate as legibly as you might like unless you're prepared to pay multiple visits, and I'm not really sure it's worth the time and energy.

"Film is like a battleground", tells Samuel Fuller Ferdinand in the beginning of this film: "Love, hate, action, violence, death. In one word: emotion." 'Pierrot le fou' is a 110 minutes film by Godard and his tenth feature. It's roughly based on a crime novel written by Lionel White. Tho, don't expect a linear adaptation. In fact, Godard and his actors mostly improvised and therefore deliver a dodgy 'surrealeperiment'.

The plot summary therefore must be given a little superficially: It's about a wannabe writer, Ferdinand Griffon (Belmondo) who escapes his every day life and runs off with his mistress Marianne (Karina) to the Mediterranean Sea. Far away from his family, he lives for the moment, reads books and tries to work on a diary. Meanwhile, the police and Algerian killers are chasing Marianne because she has committed a murder.

Godard assembles philosophical texts with shots of posters and screens, sets in musical elements and achieves to encode his film in a very inspiring way. Sometimes the imagery is fair and beautiful (i. e. Belmondo and Karina are running along a silhouette like forest which is photographed in front of a white, flat background), sometimes odious and angry (i. e. Belmondo finds an Algerian murdered with scissors and he keeps on raking in the wound), sometimes stirringly artistic (i. e. Karina takes the murder instrument, the scissors holds it in front of a wide-angle-lens and creates an unbelievably coherent effect of distortion).

Those who take the film with a living mind will experience a fascinating, beautifully filmed love story with two protagonists who do everything within the power of their tremendous acting potential. Concerning the contents, it is a cinematic toying with the duality of the characters (Ferdinand and Pierrot or Ferdinand or Marianne) or rather with schizophrenia. Belmondo plays a mad crackpot who first has a pretty martialistic based life as a husband and father whose world view staggers because of upcoming converse feelings - personated by Karina. She, married with Godard at that time, plays the character Marianne with wit, depth and anarchic charme. Her role is the symbolic enlightenment in Ferdinands being. While he strives melancholically for wisdom and always throbs on the importance of the arts, Marianne is a lackadaisical playgirl and swinger who wants to be instead of having. Belmondo as Ferdinand shows in all of his agility a vulnerability that hides behind the same gruffness of 'Une femme est une femme'.

'Pierrot le fou' is a film that dines from various influences, having some sort of private, economic, cultural or political natures. More than every other 'auteur' Godard manifests himself once more as the chronologist of his time.

I was fifteen when I saw this movie for the first time. I didn't knew much about cinema at this time. I didn't knew much about art either, nor music, nor nothing. But I will never forget the shock it was for me to discover that movie. This was pure poetry, it was the first time in my life I ever saw blue color, red and yellow. You don't have to be intellectual to love this movie, just a free child.

About some strange English subtitles I have on my DVD:

At the end of the movie, we can hear in French the first lines of a poem by Arthur Rimbaud (L'Eternité, 1872):

(Here I wanted to write the original french lines, but I'm not allowed. Curious world.)

English subtitles:

It's ours again / what is ? / eternity / No that's just the sea And the Sun

It should have been:

It is found again./ What is ? Eternity/ It is the sea/ Gone with the sun./

Minute 41. Ferdinand and Marianne are watching the man on the moon.

English subtitles:

F: - He thinks your legs and your breasts are very moving/ M: - Be quiet

But I can hear in French:

F: - I find your legs and your breasts very moving/ M: - Fcuk me

PIERROT LE FOU is a romantic crime comedy film that, through a parody treatment to the American gangster film examines human relationships and the existence in an imperfect society. This is a film that, in a messy way, shows to us a series of murders, thefts and disagreements, through a crazy love story. It is based on the 1962 novel "Obsession" by Lionel White.

It is the story of Ferdinand and Marianne. He is unhappily married and has been recently fired from his job. She is a student and his ex-girlfriend. Marianne is being chased by gangsters. They become a crazed couple on the run. He reads books, philosophizing and writing his diary. She wants to sing, dance and act. Although it seems that they are crazy in love, their relationship becomes very tense...

On one hand, the protagonists are intelligent madmen who are isolated in an imperfect world, on the other hand, they are young people who do not know what they want in life. The film is full of references to the history of cinema and painting, quotations from literature, music and political situation. Mr. Godard has drew a thin line between tension and impatience, which includes lies, deceit, sex and ultimately tragicomic end.

The scenery is striking, characterization, which includes introverted protagonist, is quite good and the soundtrack is very pleasurable.

Jean-Paul Belmondo as Ferdinand Griffon,"Pierrot" and Anna Karina as Marianne Renoir are charming and eager young people in love who want to be together, but constantly flee to themselves. Their characters lack patience and calmness. In that case, a fraud and a suicide have a different meaning.

This is, perhaps, the most amusing wandering in an universal patchwork directed by Mr. Godard.

It's hard to classify/describe this unique journey, after just one viewing. But I can say it's absolutely fascinating, one of those experiences that, even though you can't completely fathom on a first viewing, you can tell it's really something special and not artsy-fartsy crap (like David Lynch's or Jonathan Glazer's worst moments).

"Pierrot Le Fou" brings us to a bizarre journey with Ferdinand aka Pierrot (Jean-Paul Belmondo) and Marianne Renoir (Anna Karina), who run away together after Ferdinand's wife hires Marianne as a baby-sitter. What comes next is a bizarre chain of events that defies clear analysis: it's like Godard tried to put all his passions, demons and tricky questions in one film, and he surprisingly succeeded. Although not Godard's most complicated feature, "Pierrot Le Fou" can be considered one of his most subtly complex narratives; it's funny and gloomy, gorgeous and dark, absurd and real, all at once. Belmondo and Karina are superb as usual, and, again, display a terrific chemistry. You can see it as Godard's letting go of Karina (his first wife, they'd soon divorce - this was their sixth movie together), you can see it as a declaration of love to film-making (Samuel Fuller's special appearance: "It's about emotions..."), you can see it as cinematic catharsis at its best... but it's its beautiful passion and fury that'll stay in your mind. Thank you again, Monsieur Godard. 10/10.