Para Sempre Mozart

Godard's sombrest film, this meditation on the triumph of art over atrocity illustrates the Balkans' horrors as the slapdash Brechtian theatre of LES CARABINIERS. But both the world and Godard have changed in the last forty years, and the approach seems offensively academic. Even in films as recent as FIRST NAME: CARMEN and KING LEAR, Godard sprinkled atop his gnomic aphorisms and contrapuntal poetry moments of chaotic, dissonant humor. Here, blank-faced actors recite "Isn't the presence of evil worse than the absence of good?" as if off cue cards. In the pearly, mystical clarity of his images and his sounds--the latter appearing both more naturalistic and rhapsodic than ever--Godard remains a world-class master. But since his recent JLG PAR JLG, it would seem the last movement of his career is toward a crotchety cultural conservatism. His garret full of Goya, Musset and Marivaux seems colder, lonelier and less companionable than ever.

The first point that calls the attention in "For Ever Mozart" is the absence of a plot summary in IMDb. The explanation is simple since there is no story, screenplay, plot or whatever might recall the minimum structure of a movie. Jean-Luc Godard is one of the most overrated and pretentious directors of the cinema industry and this pointless crap is among his most hermetic films. I believe that neither himself has understood what is this story about; but there are intellectuals that elucubrate to justify or explain this messy movie, and it is funny to read their reviews.

My vote is one.

Title (Brazil): "Para Sempre Mozart" ("Forever Mozart")

...said a couple exiting the movie theater just as I was entering to watch this. Hmm, not a good sign, but who knows? Different strokes for different folks, after all. Well, nope. They were being kind. Godard has released work that is passionate (Contempt), entertaining (Band of Outsiders), sometimes both (My Life to Live). This is just dull intellectualism, that grates on the nerves pretty quickly. During my showing, literally half of the audience had walked out by the end of the film. If only I had been so wise.

This seemed quite accessible to me, at least in the context of late Godard. The title is a pun on "Il Faut Rever", setting the theme of art in troubled times. The story is about a group of young and somewhat naive actors setting off to perform the Musset play "On Ne Badine Pas Avec L'Amour" (One mustn't trifle with love") in Sarajevo and coming the inevitable cropper on the way. Meanwhile the lead actress's grandfather plays the now standard "Godard" role of an old filmmaker battling with producers and technology to get his film made.

The photography and use of music is often heart-stoppingly beautiful, the response to the Balkan conflict seems to me as serious as it should be while contrary to other comments there is certainly humour here both bible-black (a woman spouts philosophy while digging her own grave, a guerrilla shows a comrade what we assume are holiday snaps but are revealed to be photos of the massacre of her family) and knockabout (a film producer complains Lake Geneva has "not enough water", the audience for the old man's "Fatal Bolero" comments on a film suspiciously similar to the one we have just watched).

As ever there are numerous references which those of us not steeped in French literature will miss, but overall this seems the most direct and outward-looking of Godard's later films. I liked it very much.

Godard has create yet another confounding, challenging, beautiful, sad and passionate visual essay. the film is rich with ideas, meanings, questions, and images.