Film Forum

(1965, Jean-Luc Godard) “It’s gotta look real. This isn’t a movie.” Canned from his TV job, Jean-Paul Belmondo, fed up with his wife and Paris (who wouldn’t be, after a cocktail party conversation consisting solely of ad copy?), runs off with babysitter Anna Karina – had they known each other before? – but the next morning, what’s that dead body doing there? And then there’s a Bonnie and Clyde-ish crime spree/escape to the south of France – never more ravishing than in this restoration of Raoul Coutard’s sun-splashed color and Scope photography – done in the style of pop art, comic strips, and inspired improvisation (Belmondo’s hilarious imitation of crusty acting legend Michel Simon), with a slow-motion carjacking, dancers somersaulting on a beach while plotters clinch a double-cross, and climaxed by unbilled Belgian-French standup great Raymond Devos’ tale of a haunting romantic melody that he just can’t get out of his head. A bitter story of love betrayed loosely based on the novel Obsession by Lionel White, author of The Killing (filmed by Kubrick) and spiced with a cameo by director Sam Fuller. 4K DCP. Approx. 110 min.

Reviews

“Inventively drapes genre pastiche, literary references, flash inserts and cheeky agitprop over a robust Bonnie and Clyde-like framework… in spirit, feels like both the sum total of Godard’s past work and an exhilarating sign of things to come. It has a wild-eyed, everything-in-the-pot cross-processing of artistic, cinematic, political and personal concerns, where the story stutters, splinters and infuriates its way to an explosive finale.”
– David Jenkins, Time Out (London)

“A symphony in the key of red… oddly meticulous in its deconstruction of classical filmmaking, the crime genre, even musicals… It’s a crazy landmark, a magnificent, witty and brutal adventure into cinema’s id.”
– Tim Robey, The Telegraph

“As in Breathless, Godard favors wryly detached long shots of frantic action sequences, making Belmondo and Karina look like kids playing cops ‘n’ robbers… Engaging and beguiling – perhaps in spite of itself.”
– Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

“The dazzling mise-en-scène alternates Liechtenstein with Cézanne, pop art with impressionism, the shadow of Amerika falling across the Provençal sun.”
– Amy Taubin, The Village Voice​​​​​​​