"I had a dream I went to the theater. During the intermission, I met the devil. He was well dressed."

this movie is so french it has a scene where a character lights a cigarette with all the matches he has in his pocket at once. i cant even begin to describe how much of a jolt of pure cinema this is, it hits every sweet spot imaginable including sweet spots i didnt even notice in myself. absolute heaven.

I liked it more when I suspected that Godard had filmed his friends driving around Paris and simply dubbed in the narration to make the story about espionage and the Algerian War at the editing stage. The constant references to art are cute, but when characters read from Maoist texts (as Godard characters are wont to do) or act as (butt) trumpets for whatever sand was blowing up Godard's skirt at the moment, the movie grinds to a halt for me. Still kind of amazing that this early on he was breaking so radically away from the style of movie his cohort were making, and ballsy of Godard to directly confront the Algerian War while it was still occurring.

this godard fella sure is good with a camera huh

Interesting in that this is sandwiched between Breathless and A Woman is a Woman in his filmography and Le Petit Soldat would make more sense sitting alongside his later works. Politically conscious, but immature, Godard can't quite find the right footing, but his attempts at experimentation keep this one visually interesting. I find the scenes depicting torture the most emotionally and thematically cognizant. The image of one man's face being doused with water, while the bag around his face works like a mask breathing in and out is powerful. It's probably the best image of the movie for what Godard was going for, but he's just too "cool" at this point in his career to really grapple with the political ideas he's trying to juggle. Instead this often plays more like a gangster picture than a theoretical play on political allegiances.

Finally a film from Goddard I can actually vibe with. Tackling a much more darker subject matter Goddard isnt up to his usual fun shtick but is able to put us in the mind of a vagabond agent. The more realistic tone works and is actually done suprisingly well. And of course seeing Anna Karina again is an absolute delight.

‘Ideals mean nothing, I don’t love mankind automatically, my heart, then, would not know where to commit … It was after killing Palivoda that I learned Veronica was dead. I had no choice but to learn to not be bitter. I was just glad that I had so much time ahead of me.’

I wouldn’t be surprised to discover that a large portion of this film is footage Godard shot of his friends in Geneva that he retooled into a spy thriller with voice over. Die hard fans of his have always described this to me as some kind of forgotten masterpiece in a career whose first phase was filled with masterpieces, but I’m not fully convinced. It deserves props for its brazen critiques of French imperialism and frank depictions of the Algerian conflict (torture, indoctrination, and other dirty tactics), but in its formal experimentation it feels a bit stagnant, coasting too much on the filming techniques and artistic quotations used in Breathless. An important footnote none the less in Godard’s filmography, but one I’m glad he moved well beyond.

One thing I've never liked about Goddard is how he writes Women, and sneaks in little MRA-like bullshit into his dialogues.

Meh

more musings on spring turning to summer

“Photography is truth, cinema is truth twenty-four times a second”

“Photography is truth, and Cinema is truth 24 times a second.”

This bore me to death.

Enjoyed this for a lot of reasons but all I can think about right now is the hilarious amount of cig blasting that goes down in the movie.