Summary
This is the story of Angela, an attractive night club stripper, who decides one
day that she must have a baby. Her boyfriend, Emile, isn’t in the mood right now,
so he suggests that she approach his friend, Alfred. What starts out as a harmless
joke quickly escalates into a flurry of misunderstandings, petty jealousies and arguments.
Luckily, it all ends well and Angela gets what she wants.
Review
This is probably director Jean-Luc Godard’s funniest film, although it is in his characteristically
tongue-in-cheek, slightly anarchistic style that uniquely identified his contribution
to the French New Wave. This is a film that is fast, charged with energy and colour,
with some genuinely comic moments that seem to surpass comedy in their brilliance.
The voracious and temperamental Anna Karina is perfectly cast against the self-restrained
prim Jean-Claude Brialy. It looks like a relationship made in Hell, with Brialy
as hopelessly inexpert in the bedroom as Karina is in the kitchen. The scene where
the two lovers give up talking to each other and end up communicating by book covers is
beyond genius in its comic effect. Throw in Jean-Paul Belmondo in a typically subdued
melancholic role as Brialy’s rival and the magnificent ensemble is complete.
Godard manages to use his unique film making style, complete with frenetic camera movements
and rough-edged cuts, to create a film with genuine impact and value. The
comedy is there to supplement, not distract from, a complicated and entangled human story.
If the viewer is able to mentally switch off the comic moments and not be distracted by
Godard’s style, a different film emerges, one where the frustrations of a man and a woman
separately seeking a fulfilled life are explored in immense depth and with great perspicacity.
As Brialy says during the film, we can never be sure whether this is a comedy or a tragedy.
But we can be certain that it is unmistakably a work of genius.
© James Travers 2001
For more on Jean-Luc Godard see:
The life of Jean-Luc Godard
Best of the French New Wave
A bout de souffle
Vivre sa vie
Alphaville
Masculin, féminin
Le Mépris
Pierrot le fou
Eloge de l'amour
Buy films by Jean-Luc Godard
Buy films starring Jean-Paul Belmondo
More about the French New Wave
|
