Prénom Carmen

As happens more with Godard, it's not easy to lay a finger on 'Prenom: Carmen' (= French for 'First name: Carmen'). Although the film appears to be chaotic, it somehow is kept together by a number of invisible strings.

Anyway, the very pleasant & often repeated bottom lines are made by a classical chamber orchestra, as well as by shots of sea-waves breaking themselves on the coast.

In between the meager plot develops in a sequence of varying scenes, even including a touch of slapstick. However, in the end one cannot escape the conclusion that 'Prenom: Carmen' needs to be supported by Maruschka Detmer's frequent nudity to leave a more lasting impression.

Here are the bare bones of the story: Carmen wants to make a film with her friends, but has no money. The gang tries to stage an armed bank robbery, but runs into fierce opposition from Joseph, a guard. Carmen and Joseph flee together to the coast, where they stay in her Uncle Jean's apartment. Jean (Godard himself) is making a film set in a luxury hotel, but this is just a pretext for a kidnapping attempt on a businessman. From here on, the plot follows the Bizet opera beloved of so many of us.

It's fun to watch Godard working out styles and themes again, while acting outrageously in the hospital scene. Maruschka Detmers looks gorgeous, and Jacques Bonnaffe is suitably ardent and foolish. The bank robbery is worthy of Woody Allen in his best days.

Footnote 2014: I see that I neglected to mention the extraordinary camera work in the hotel sequences. How Coutard managed to get that level of intimacy and richness of colour with the light levels so low near sunset is amazing. Detmers manages to cope with Godard's need to sexualize the story very well--she is excellent.

I've seen this once, which isn't really enough, but I found it the most sheerly enjoyable of Godard's later works.

A kaleidescopic updating and deconstruction of the "Carmen" story, it's "Carmen", it's "Last Tango in Paris", it's a girl and a gun, it's the Keystone Kops, it gives us Godard as randy old pervert and it's informed throughout by Beethoven's beautiful late string quartets, which this film made me start listening to. It's also screamingly funny.

I will admit to understanding about a tenth of this and Godard's later work is so personal that it's probably futile to hope that everything will become clear, but I shall see this again as soon as I get the chance. Hal Hartley (and Tarantino) eat your heart out....

Prénom: Carmen follows a young woman as she falls in love with a security guard who works at a bank she and her friends rob. Hiding in a house near the sea, they share a love that is marked by the impossibility of it to be. The film has some wonderful images, music and scenes, but my main problem with it is that I don't know who these characters are, I never connect with them. We have a truly beautiful love story in front of us, but one that feels really empty and rather forced.

A scene that had the potential to be heartbreaking (the scene with the television) remains as a rather laughable and pretentious one. This isn't the actors' fault, actually the performances are excellent, mostly Maruschka Detmers' as Carmen, but it is Godard's fault for not deepening at all in the characters. They come together, they break up, they try to return, but I don't care whether they end up together or not.

The film though has some wonderful recurring images, mostly the string quartet that plays Beethoven often softly often aggressively as the relationship goes through different stages. Two trains cross each other coming from different directions when the lovers come together or apart and constant images of the waves at the sea are also some other recurring scenes. All these images are extremely beautiful, as are all the angles from the normal scenes of the film. The lights are all very carefully thought of and the film, despite its slight pretentiousness and the little interest we have for its characters, manages to be very entertaining and has a hilarious bank robbery scene. Godard also appears as probably the most interesting character. He plays himself and lives in a mental hospital for being the only completely sincere person in the film and doing and saying whatever he wants all the time.

Prénom: Carmen is a surreal impossible love story with wonderful performances and direction, an engaging soundtrack and a love story we don't care about.

Rating: 2.5/5.

Carmen is a member of a terrorist gang who falls in love with a young police officer guarding a bank that she and her cohorts try to rob. She leads him on while dragging the two of them closer to their ultimate doom.

What the average viewer will take away from this film is the excessive nudity, both male and female. There is a shower scene that is hard to forget, because it is both perverse and terribly sad. I can only imagine how hard this film would have been to get into American theaters.

The moment you really know this film is bonkers, however, involves a store bathroom. A man, a woman, a urinal, and another man... and a jar of baby food. Now, for the rest of my life, I can say (for good or bad) Godard has changed the way I look at cinema.