2 ou 3 choses que je sais d'elle

Ostensibly a movie about a middle-class woman who supplements her husband's earning by turning tricks, this film by Jean-Luc Godard seems to be an existentialist tract about loneliness, with Godard himself constantly whispering his thoughts about the subject.

I'm not a fan of the New Wave -- Truffaut, Demy, Malle and Rohmer occasionally excepted -- but this soon reveals itself as an exercise in the failings of modern society and the people within it. Everyone is disconnected from other human beings, everyone feels hopeless and is just going through the motions and no one tries to view anything as a more than a collection of unrelated attributes. It is possible, of course, that Godard has produced a satire of current French philosophy, with everyone well-dressed in the latest fashions, smoking American cigarettes and drinking Coca-Cola, and Raoul Levy showing up as "John Bogus, the American", wearing a t-shirt with an American flag and claiming to be a photo-journalist.

I do have an urge to smack every cast member, and that is why I think it may be a satire about hyper-intellectuals who are so wise they are miserable, so assured in their beliefs that they believe nothing, so brave in their solitude that they refuse to trust anyone.

But I think not.

"2 or 3 Things I Know About Her" is very odd, even for Godard: of course it has no plot, that goes without saying, but it also - and this is unlike his other few films I've seen - it has no characters, no central themes, no narrative threads: it's a rambling collage of unrelated scenes, mostly revolving around Marina Vlady (and her unusually beautiful face), but sometimes bringing others into the forefront for a scene or two, before it casually tosses them away. It does not add up to much (when it's over you feel like you want to watch a real movie), although Godard's absurdist sense of humor (perhaps his greatest asset) helps a little, as does the bright cinematography. ** out of 4.

The title is a slightly ironic one; implying the importance of Godard as the film's personal narrator and ably illustrating that the "two or three things he knows about her" are referring not only to the film and the central character, but to Paris itself. It's one of the filmmaker's most difficult and disorientating films, existing within the same creative mindset as Week End (1967) and La Chinoise (1967), but failing to meet that particular level of subversive brilliance. Many of Godard's most obvious hallmarks are still in place, from the notion of society as prostitution, the rise of American consumerism, the state of France in the midst of political upheaval, relationships between men and women, the nature of cinema as a platform for discussion, satire, imagination and ideas, and the appropriation of a larger than life visual design taking in elements of pop art, surrealism, Buñuel and Brecht. However, unlike the similarly minded films aforementioned, 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967) doesn't quite come together as a consistent and cohesive whole, instead seeming somewhat sluggish and anchored to a character that is neither interesting nor particularly well performed.

That said; I feel people shouldn't be so quick to dismiss the film, as it features several scenes of bold technical invention, a sharp and biting wit and a real sense of both visual and thematic imagination. It is also a fairly worthy time capsule to the spirit and scope of Paris at this particular time, expressing many of the political fears and social concerns central to most free-thinking Parisians circa 1967. Whereas the two other Politically minded films that Godard produced in 1967 would broaden the thematic scope to create a much more pointed attack on armchair terrorists and bourgeois revolutionaries, "2 or 3 Things" works on a much smaller scale; choosing suburban Paris with its high-rise apartment buildings, shops and service stations as a backdrop that is continually dwarfed by the wheels of industry and industrial repair. At one point Godard says in voice over that "the landscape is like a face", all the while showing how it is continually destroyed, changed and re-developed in a series of repetitive visual metaphors open to a variety of thematic interpretations. Many viewers take these sequences at face value and choose to view the film as a simple, heavy-handed essay on the decline of industry and the rise of Capitalism and subsequently write the film off. However, even though the film takes a great deal of work and may indeed seem boring and heavy-handed, there are deeper themes and ideas that make this a slightly more rewarding work in the long run.

Once again, Godard anchors his ideas to the theme of prostitution; recalling elements of Vivre sa Vie (1962) whilst simultaneously foreshadowing certain issues later expressed in Sauve qui peut (la vie) (1980). Like the latter film, Godard implies that with an increasing focus on consumerism and the pursuit of material gain, society is prostituting itself. This is further elaborated upon by Godard's continual focus on product logos and brand names that are inter cut and often re-framed in order to create humorous puns that are probably lost on anyone not entirely familiar with the French language, as well as a final shot that renders the cityscape of suburban Paris as the ultimate consumer paradise. The idea of prostitution also extends to the main character, who here, prostitutes herself in order to break up the monotony of her everyday life, whilst also featuring as a somewhat controversial comment on acting itself (something that is further implied in the opening scene).

Like many of Godard's films, "2 or 3 Things" uses a great deal of humour to give the satire a more pointed attack. Much of this humour tends to go over the heads of most viewers, largely as a result of having to read the subtitles or simply missing out on much of Godard's clever use of wordplay and usually ironic puns. Scenes, such as the young boy relating his dream about the unification of North and South Vietnam, or the scene in which Juliet and her friend enact a bizarre, tongue-in-cheek sex game with a foreign war correspondent (who films them with a super 8 camera and looks a little like Godard himself), all the while cutting back and forth to shots of construction and cars entering a service station, being an incredibly bold and rebellious critique in itself. Other sections of the film seem more poetic; almost as if Godard is putting his thoughts on film as he goes along and creating something that is, on the one hand, entirely personal, whilst simultaneously being an obvious piece of satirical agitprop. The two strands don't always sit well together, and too often Godard's ideas seem strained and unformed; especially in comparison with those two other films from 1967, previously mentioned.

Obviously many viewers have had problems with the film, and really, your enjoyment of it will depend greatly on how much you trust Godard's instincts as both a satirist and filmmaker, and how willing you are to enter into a dialog with him on a subject that is now resigned to an incredibly brief footnote in 20th century history. For me, the film is undoubtedly one of his more difficult projects and not one that I would place higher than the likes of Le Mepris (1963), Pierrot le fou (1965) or Helas pour moi (1993), etc. However, the scope of Godard's ideas and his way of presenting them visually are close to genius, whilst the occasional moment of imaginative wit, visual poetry or the sheer verve of Godard's film-making abilities make the slow pace and poor performance from Marina Vlady all the more bearable. 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her is worth seeing in the context of both Week End and La Chinoise and is certainly worth experiencing as a double bill with the similarly themed Sauve qui peut (la vie).

Godard rejects his `all you need to make a film is a girl and a gun' theory in Two or Three Thing I Know About Her. The 'her' refers to Paris rather than the female protagonist and the only gun apparent is a toy that belongs to her son. The inspiration for the film came from an article on housewife prostitution. Godard consequently examined his theory that to live in Paris (in 1966) one had to prostitute oneself to survive. The narrative is shot through the eyes of Juliette (Marina Vlady), a Parisian housewife. She prostitutes herself weekly in the vain hope that she will be able to buy happiness and escape the high rise Parisian suburb where she lives with her husband and young son. Two or Three Things I Know About Her is a skillfully composed visual essay. It is an astounding collage of images that acknowledges the transformation of modern society into a technological monstrosity. As the principal strength of the French New Wave, Godard created a masterpiece that comes across as revolutionary and modernist over thirty years subsequent to its conception.

Watching a French film - or more specifically, a film by Jean-Luc Godard - is like having bad sex; the event in itself can be annoying, uncomfortable, and somewhat restless, but at the end of it, you're good for another. That's how it has felt perusing the French New Wave works of the aforementioned radical and acclaimed director, a man who is often regarded as one of cinema's most profound and original directors. Godard rose to fame in the 1960's during the worldwide student movement, where students from all over the world began rebelling from modern conventions - listening to louder, more boisterous music, taking part in more raucous activities, using illegal substances, and showing no respect or care for higher authority.

French's student movement turned into something of a cinema movement. To a small group of devoted young cinephiles, French film seemed like a cheap art - one capable of so much more but settled for so very little. Nobody seemed to want to experiment or toy with the medium in anyway. That is until Godard hit the scene, boasting a more assured and confident enigma and housing extremely radical and challenging themes and stylistic choices few had seen before.

I equate Godard's films to bad sex because it isn't until after watching them and reading a few thoughts by a miscellaneous bunch online do I realize if I liked them or not. His films are challenging because while watching them, you're sometimes lost in what they're trying to convey. But once you find an idea or some aesthetic attributes to latch on to, dissecting the film is a much easier process. In that respect, Godard's films may also be like an algebra test.

2 or 3 Things I Know About Her, however, is sex I never got around to fully enjoying and an algebra test I was never able to pass in the long-run. The film is nowhere near as indescribable or as impossibly vague and empty as Godard's latest work Film Socialisme, but its ability to baffle even fifty years late still holds true. This is a cinematic enigma like few others with sequences ranging from digestible and accessible to a complete mystery on my behalf.

What little coherent narrative there is focuses on Juliette Jeanson (Marina Vlady), a married bourgeois mother who begins her descent into prostitution. She drops her child off at a friend's who runs a business of watching the children of prostitutes before going about her day of shopping, cleaning the house, and meeting new clients. Godard's uniqueness in regard to the story is that he makes all of the sex lack any shred of eroticism and instead makes it rather silly (IE: a man makes a woman wear a shopping bag over her head).

Godard consistently interrupts this narrative with shots of whatever he feels like pointing the camera at with soft-spoken narration added over the images. Godard's narration often doesn't make a lot of sense, but his unpredictable comments and remarks provide the film with or feeling that he is watching this picture with us and giving his own commentary as it progresses.

During the time of 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her's release (1967 to be specific), Godard had become outspoken about his opposition towards Americanization and the ideas of the country as a whole. In the late sixties, prolific advertising began to turn up and, consequently, Godard saw this as an attack and began vocalizing his disdain for advertising. Frequently punctuating this particular picture are stray images of pop art, akin to the style Andy Warhol was famous for.

Of course, the meaning for the inclusions of these images is anyone's guess really. Godard makes his impressionistic style known and present and leaves us to form the thesis out of his work for ourselves it seems. This is one of the issues with this film as a whole. A film should never feel like it is handing you a series of clips and telling you to form an idea out of them without giving you a starting point or an anchor to latch on to. Even in the most impressionistic films by people like Ron Fricke or Gus Van Sant, there is a basic idea or concept that one can attach themselves to in order to try and form some ideas about the film's message.

Godard never seems to give us a starting point with 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her other than a compilation of clips that could very well have a deeper meaning if we knew just where the hell to begin. The pop art/advertising angle is something to go off of, but the film doesn't seem to focus on that nearly enough for it to be the main theme. And with that, even Juliette just seems like a character Godard includes to simply emphasize his appreciation and admiration for prostitutes.

As damning as 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her so often is, the film looks bright, crisp, and extremely clear thanks to the cinematography of Godard's frequent collaborator Raoul Coutard. Coutard gives the film a refined and aesthetically beautiful look, even if what he's showing us doesn't pack in a lot of clarity or real sense. As a film, 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her baffles beyond belief and fails at stringing together a coherent and digestible narrative. As an essay on film, it kinda works - if only I didn't have to cheat to figure out what could be an acceptable answer to it.

Starring: Marina Vlady. Directed by: Jean-Luc Godard.