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Credits
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Summary
Paris in the 1960s. Bored housewives
living
in dull housing estates resort to prostitution. Meanwhile, the
society
around them drifts into a state of comatose acceptance of an
emotionless,
commercialised future.
Review
Jean-Luc Godard’s brilliantly perceptive and
eloquent
study of social decline in the 1960s remains surprisingly fresh and
relevant
to today’s generation. The film comes from a period where Godard
was beginning to depart from the conventional narrative form to a more
abstract, free-flowing form of cinema. Whilst this makes the film
less accessible than his earlier works, this does not distract from the
point he is making (unlike some of his later films where style appears
to take precedence over content). This film in particular uses
some
stunningly effective imagery, such as close-ups of a cup of coffee to
represent
the empty void into which human consciousness seems to be drifting.
The
mid 1960s was a period that was ripe for this kind of intellectual
criticism
and deconstruction. The West was becoming almost inured to the
atrocities
of the Vietnam war, rampant consumerism was having a marked effect on
lifestyles
and social attitudes, there was a growing rift between the left and
right
in France and a stirring social conscience. There was never a
better
period to be a French film-maker, and Godard managed to reflect all
these
aspects of contemporary life in his films of this era.
© James Travers 2000
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