Nouvelle vague

Most people will not like this film. It's difficult to understand what's going on in the narrative. This isn't uncommon in Godard's work, but it's especially true of his later work. I've seen, besides New Wave, First Name: Carmen, Hail Mary, and his segment from the omnibus opera film Aria. That segment is actually one of his best works as well. Sticking with the two other features, they are both interesting and beautiful but very slow films. New Wave seems a lot like them at first, especially in its confusing narrative (I had to read a synopsis on it to find out exactly what the plot was). It shares their beauty, but its even more pronounced. If I were advising someone on this film, I would tell them to disregard the narrative completely. Just watch it for its pictorial beauty. And its sound. Godard's experiments in sound have always been one of the most prominent traits of his cinema. It goes back at least to Une femme est une femme, way back in '62. This film contains the most interesting experiments in sound. The music is absolutely beautiful, and, like many of his other films, it stops abruptly, pops back up when you're not expecting it, and shifts volumes randomly. The sound effects are also quite beautiful. While New Wave was perhaps dull in its narrative (it's an examination of capitalism and consumerism), who cares? This is film. Film is a visual medium, and this is a visual masterpiece. Remember: RES, NON VERBA ("things, not words," an intertitle that appears frequently in the film). Oh, and Alain Delon, star of such great films as Rocco and His Brothers, stars. He's still a major stud! 9/10.

This is an empty shell of a film, washed up and abandoned by the vibrancy which once pulsed through the Godard canon. The fresh approach from the sixties has 'matured' into little more than a largely fruitless exercise in intellectual pretension, occasionally engaging (the mere presence of Alain Delon is enough for this), but more often than not wilfully obfuscatory and infuriatingly half-baked.

The editing is as lively as ever but serves for little when used to accompany the thin story of the countess (Domiziana Giordano trying ever so hard to be enigmatic) and her shady business dealings. There are too many only half-explored ideas, such as the familiar Marxist class considerations, expressed in cod philosophical voice-over musings, for the film to achieve a satisfactory sense of wholeness. Indeed, superficially clever but ultimately meaningless assertions such as `Maybe a man isn't enough for a woman, or perhaps he's too much' would be more in place in the glossy surroundings of a Calvin Klein advert. The title acts as an ironic and sad reminder of what the director once was, but I get the feeling he isn't really trying any more.

One of those movies that you should watch twice in order to understand it better. Of course, one should love Poetry/Literature or Godard's movies, or else he/she may dislike it and find it pretentious. As another reviewer said, Godard is an acquired taste. You either love it or hate it. I love his movies and even myself have disliked some movies of his because i found them boring or meaningless.

New Wave is not that easy to watch : Characters recite all the time quotes from literary works. Most of those quotes are thoughtful and made me think a lot. But there are too many of them and i had to be 100% concentrated and even that, it was not enough. I paused the movie many times in order to perceive what the characters were saying. But it worths the trouble. This is a highly intelligent movie and i enjoyed it.

How do you film the air for a movie? May you find the past with the help of present, or look for the present through the past? Where are the elements of life (nature, love, thoughts...) in the image that reflects the screen? Is it possible to talk and work with a symbol you never used thirty years ago? And which are the signs of second chances?

Like Hemingway's 'Along the River and Beyond the Trees', 'Nouvelle vague' is a film about the feelings of a mid-aged man in his relation with himself after a car-crash in a Middle Europe road. Godard himself lives around the place, in a beautiful scenery close to nature. The filmmaker, since 'A bout de souffle', smelled the flavor of the countryside. 'Nouvelle vague' is a film for senses. You hear-a-heart beating along the trees.

Bien pour Godard, Lubtchansky, Delon...

When I was younger, I used to feel jealousy towards people who clicked with stuff like this, but now I think I might pity them.

This film's Godard at his lamest and most frustrating. It's pretty much unwatchable. If I have to give him credit, I guess he could've made Nouvelle Vague longer. An 89-minute runtime might suggest some restraint, but it felt much longer.

Godard's a director whose well-known stuff I watched some time ago and kind of liked, but it only took a couple of deep cuts for me to get the sense his style was generally not for me. This is one I wanted to give a chance, because it's been years since I saw a Godard film and Alain Delon was in it, but I found it more insufferable than anything else by Godard I'd seen before.

Characters speak about nothing, every scene is tedious, everything feels meaningless, and if that's the point somehow I don't care and still don't like it. This just sucks.