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Credits
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Summary
In a comfortable apartment in France, a small group of students are
studying
the teachings of Chairman Mao of China. They discuss how they
intend
to convert the world to a Maoist community, using terrorism if
necessary.
Review
La
Chinoise, possibly Godard’s most overtly political work, is very much a
film of its time. The mid-1960s was a period of great social
change
and political tension. America was at war with Vietnam, relations
between Russia and the West were growing ever cooler, and the Far East
was awakening to the hymn of the Chinese cultural revolution.
Nearer
to home, there was increasing tension between the French government,
public-sector
workers and the student population, which would come to a head in the
following
year with the student riots. In a way, it would have been more
surprising
if a French film director had not created a film like La
Chinoise.
Godard just happened to be around at the time when the film needed to
be
made.
Here, Godard’s method of film-making is at its most primitive and extreme. In a sense, it is hardly a film at all, but a series of sketches nailed crudely together, interspersed with some pretty wild pop-art like imagery. The end result is raggedy, colourful, a bit rough round the edges, but also quite witty. Jean-Pierre Léaud and Anne Wiazemsky are both delightful as Guillaume and Veronique, a perfect portrayal of the naivety of university students from bourgeois backgrounds. It is not clear from this film where Godard’s political allegiances lie. We can see that he is against the hypocrasy of the Amercain interventionalist policy, which he suggests are derived from imperialistic motives. However, it is less certain where he stands with regard to the Maoist communist ideal. The discussion between the students appears incredibly naïve, didactic, almost to the point of self-mockery. And the fact that the students are evidently from a middle class background, living in a comfortable apartment, seems to further underline the contradiction between their personal circumstances and their apparently deeply held beliefs. It is plausible to regard La Chinoise as Godard’s view of how students consider the politics of the time rather than as a portrayal of his own political views. With that in mind, the film reads as a very perceptive, almost affectionate, study of the naivety of young adults. For these people, freed from the need to work for a living as they pursue their studies in comfortable surroundings, it is easy to contrive a woolly-minded simplistic picture of the world, and to believe that a few bombs in one or two school classrooms will solve everything. As the film reveals in its final segment, the dream ends as soon as the degree course has ended and its architects step outside into the real world. Godard seems consciously to be admitting that his film will change nothing but that it is nonetheless valuable to at least make his statement. © James Travers 2000
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