Une femme mariée

Jean-Luc Godard's eighth feature film, UNE FEMME MARIÉE (A Married Woman, 1964) is a tale of adultery. As it opens, we meet Charlotte (Macha Meril) at a tryst with her lover Robert (Bernard Noël). Though Robert tries to convince her to divorce her husband, the pilot Pierre (Philippe Leroy), Charlotte's loyalties remain divided.

Godard labeled UNE FEMME MARIÉE not a "film" but rather "a collection of fragments from a film shot in 1964". However, this is much less avant-garde disjointed than one might expect. Godard chooses a fragment-based means of storytelling for the moments between Charlotte and her lover, presenting a sequence of brief dialogues between the lovers in rapid succession. Each of these self-encapsulated moments serves as another brick in the wall of what we know about the relationship. Such compressed storytelling manages to distill otherwise ineffable interpersonal dramas and feelings. The framing in the scenes between Charlotte and her lover is remarkable: close-up shots of their faces or limbs against featureless backgrounds. Generally the face of the person speaking is not shown and we hear only the words.

But while there had already been myriad such tales of love triangles through the ages, this film offers something fresh by combining it with a critique of 1960s consumer society. The characters pepper their conversation with commercial jingles, parrot whole advertising texts, or recite factoids. In shots of home life, the latest fancy name-brand cleaning products and electronics are placed prominently in the frame. Charlotte and her maid read women's magazines and see whether they live up to the standards of beauty that the media prescribes. The Auschwitz trials were going on at the same time as shooting, and Godard chose to work references to this into the characters' conversations. In this way, he underscores how consumer society emphasizes thinking about the present, buying whatever is called must-have now, and thus discourages self-reflection and critically gazing on the past. The film's message remains perennially fresh, and I think many viewers will enjoy UNE FEMME MARIEE.

Godard would take up the "housewife and consumerism" theme again three years later in 2 OU 3 CHOSES QUE JE SAIS D'ELLE, where this time the housewife prostitutes herself during the day to buy all the nice things that her husband can't. As a critique of consumerism, that later film is more successful inasmuch as it was shot in colour, and thus shows how commercial brands were using brash designs to draw the eye of shoppers. ("If you can't afford LSD," Godard says in a voice-over there, "buy a colour television.") However, UNE FEMME MARIEE is not just a rough sketch for the later film, and I'd even call it a better film, inasmuch as it tells a coherent story while the elements of the later one don't entirely come together for me.

To call Jean-Luc Godard's Une Femme Mariée a ponderous film is nothing short of the truth; the film, even at ninety-one minutes, is a lengthy, patient-testing endeavor. Yet, the film captures remarkable essences of mood and emotion that are nothing shy of poetic and quietly moving. Godard, once again, resorts back to classic, black-and-white film in order to accurately and wisely capture the sensual moods of the 1960's rather than become wrapped up in petty detail.

This is yet another Godard film that will likely be appreciated by many after the film is over. When enduring the film, it becomes quite the challenge to stay in-tuned with it, since the prolific title-cards, frequent narrations, and sometimes uneventful instances seem to do everything they can in alienating and turning-off a viewer. However, after several hours (or, admittedly, days), contemplating a Godard film or keeping it in your head makes you warm up to its sensibilities and its techniques, as if you just cracked (or found yourself closer to cracking) the film's code.

The film's plot is a sentence long, following the relationship between Charlotte (Macha Méril) and her lover Robert (Bernard Noël), despite having a relationship with Pierre (Philippe Leroy), as well with having a child with him in the process. Despite this setback, Charlotte still spends much of her time with Robert, doing typical things you'd find in a Godard movie; whispering softly, discussing philosophy, getting romantic, and simply enjoying the presence of each other.

Once you get past the fact that the film is stripping everything you'd expect it to include down to very minimalistic ingredients is when your response to Une Femme Mariée may be a bit stronger or perhaps simply unfazed. The film is a film of essences, atmosphere, tone, and emotion, captured in black and white to only affirm its details are shifted out in favor of a less-distracting experience. Throughout the film, we see Robert and Charlotte show affection for one another and also admire their own bodies. Of Godard's French New Wave films that I have seen up until this point, Une Femme Mariée is the one that contains the most controversial imagery (by American standards) in terms of nudity.

Yet, Godard's film is certainly not graphic by any means; by American censorship standards even in the present day, it's incredibly tame, mostly using lengthy close-ups to depict pasty-white skin. By doing this, Godard creates a very intimate and sexual mood, a common characteristic of the 1960's in France, again, catering to the idea that he favors capturing an essence or a mood rather than focusing on plot-progression and intense character development. This sexual atmosphere is surprisingly not arousing but more tender and appreciative of human anatomy, something we're sometimes believed we are not supposed to be proud of.

In the regard of being a meditative, moody little drama with some raw feelings of emotion and intimacy, Une Femme Mariée does succeed and meshes nicely with Godard's other New Wave films. However, the picture does become watery and difficult to sit through, especially during the third act when things seem to take a more ambiguous road. Expect Godard, receive Godard, what you do and think after may vary.

Starring: Bernard Noël and Macha Méril. Directed by: Jean-Luc Godard.

You decide to make the leap, Pierre to Robert, an actor, he likes you shorn of blouse and your skirts, doesn't overpower you, like Pierre's inclined to do, and he fits into an image, you prefer. Pierre was made aware, of all your cheating, had you followed and found out of covert meetings, but he thought it was all over, the affair had found its closure, he's oblivious that you haven't been retreating. A doctor lets you know there'll be another, in six months you will become natural mother, but the father could be either, 50/50 the conceiver, have to decide if it's one, or it's the other.

A typically abstract tale from the director of the deep, conceptual and symbolic, centred around Charlottes dilemma and how the world around her influences.

I was all set to adore this movie. I'd just seen Woman is a Woman and loved it, and the opening 30 mins of this look gorgeous in black and white on Blu Ray. The whispering and close-ups are hypnotic, and the monkeying around is not bothersome. But then, quel disastre, a typical Godard left turn, and I have to sit through (what felt like) 45 minutes of ponderous talking heads. You had to be there. I took years to get around to watching this, and I was loving it, honest, but man, he just wore me down. I had to admit that I was hating it. Just like some boring documentary. Why oh why such extended ruminations. Show not tell that's the idea. In this film its show for 30 minutes then tell for 30. I had to turn it off, sadly. So, my rating reflects this. I loved exactly half of what I saw.

5/10

He did it in 1961, in 1962, in 1963, and in 1964 Godard made another movie about a woman questioning the meaning of love, life, and acting. This movie, like the others, is a fun treat for Godard fans and fans of inventive camera and editing techniques, though it doesn't have as much heart as "Contempt", "Une femme est une femme", or even "Vivre sa vie".

"Une femme mariee" depicts the affair of a bored housewife, but director Godard strives to convey the feeling that we are reading about her in a women's magazine. To achieve this the scenes with the actors abruptly cuts to fashion photos, make- up ads, and text. It's a stylish movie with a brisk pace, but, just like a magazine story, it doesn't take long for it to leave the mind or heart either. Yes, Godard's creativity may soar higher here than ever before. His playfulness leaps through the surprising angles and reveals, his panning of words in magazines, x-ray photography, and whispered narration, etc, yet the story seems tacked on. We float from idea to idea as they enter and leave the director's head, which is fun for a one-time viewing, probably the way that glancing at his sketchbook may feel, but the lack of motivation, of purpose, inevitably keeps this effort from standing in the same grouping as the previously mentioned works, the ones that we watch more frequently, the ones that give us cinematic nourishment, the more organic, more well-rounded, fully realized pieces.