Éloge de l'amour
| 2001 Romance / Drama |  |
Credits Director:
Jean-Luc
Godard
Script: Jean-Luc Godard Photo: Julien Hirsch and Christophe Pollock Music: Ketil Bjornstad, David Darling, Karl Amadeus Hartmann, Maurice Jaubert, Arvo Pärt and Georges Van Parys Cast: Bruno Putzulu (Edgar), Cecile Camp (Berthe), Jean Davy (le grand-père), Françoise Verny (la grande-mère), Audrey Klebaner (Eglantine), Philippe Lyrette (le garçon), Jérémy Lippmann (Perceval), Claude Baignières (Mr Rosenthal), Rémo Forlani (Mr Forlani) Runtime: 98 min Aka: In Praise of Love Summary A filmmaker Edgar is preparing to make a film about
the four stages of love (meeting, passion, separation and reconciliation).
Having secured financial backing, his biggest problem is to find a suitable
young woman to play his female lead in the film. When finally he
finds his ideal actress, a young lawyer named Berthe, she dies soon afterwards.
Convinced that he has met her somewhere before, Edgar looks back on his
recent past. He recalls a time, two years ago, when he met an elderly
couple who were in the process of selling their wartime experiences in
the French Resistance to a Hollywood film production company. It
was here that Edgar met Berthe for the first time…
Review Having trodden the path towards ever-increasing obscurity
in the 1990s, the eternal maverick of French cinema, Jean-Luc Godard made
a surprising come-back with Éloge de l'amour, his first major
theatrical release outside of France for well over a decade. More
sophisticated and mature than Godard’s increasingly abstract and inward-looking
works of the 1990s, it is a film which manages to capture the essence of
Godard’s cinema (his political concerns, his love of character, his enthusiasm
for cinema and literature, to say nothing of his near-pathological contempt
for mainstream cinema). At the same time, it is a challenging work,
packed with content whilst employing a minimalist approach reminiscent
of Robert Bresson (another great director who is often referred to in the
film).
The film is divided in two contrasting parts. It begins with an author’s seemingly doomed attempts to realise a ‘project’ (perhaps a film, but we cannot be certain of this). This part of the film is shot beautifully in black-and-white, almost as a sombre elegy to monochrome cinema. This includes some stunning night shots of Paris, immediately evocative of the Nouvelle Vague cinema of the 1960s in which Godard played such a major part. Two thirds of the way into the film, the mood and style change suddenly, as if we have been propelled into a dream. Thanks to the marvels of the latest digital technology, the images suddenly take on an otherworldly form, with overly saturated colour and some occasional visual distortions. The content of the film is as striking as its extraordinary visual form. In addition to some brilliant examples of Godardesque humour (the best example being two young girls gathering a petition to get film “The Matrix” dubbed into Breton), social concerns and philosophical observations abound – far too much to be picked up in a single viewing of the film. Godard’s loathing for Hollywood is brilliantly represented in the scene where an elderly couple sell their life story to an American filmmaker (“let’s book Juliette Binoche”), but his wider political concerns are also very much in presence. The relationship between real life and cinema are explored, rather ingeniously, though the thoughts and experiences of a sensitive filmmaker (very probably Godard’s alter ego). There is some resonance with the cinema of Godard’s contemporary, Alain Resnais, in the recurring allusions to the link between time and memory. Whilst condemning Hollywood filmmakers for exploiting memory just like any other commodity, to be bought and sold, Godard shows us the true value of memory, an essential part of human existence that cannot just be sold to the highest bidder. One
of Godard’s most intelligent and thought-provoking films, Éloge
de l'amour manages to avoid the self-indulgent excesses of the director’s
previous works, such as King Lear
(1987) and Hélas pour moi
(1993). Rather than provoking or mystifying its audience, this latest
Godard has an almost irresistible charm, offering some poignant reflections
on life, love and the dying art of cinema.
For more on Jean-Luc Godard see: |
 
|
|
||||||||
| HOME |
| |
FILMS TO BUY | | |
FILMS INDEX |
| |
ACTORS |
| |
DIRECTORS |
|
||||||||
 |
