Watching my first Jean Luc Godard at a French film festival recently has sure been a life-altering experience. I now am a Godard lover and a French film savant
Watching my first Jean Luc Godard at a French film festival recently has sure been a life-altering experience. I now am a Godard lover and a French film savant
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The movie was showcased as a part of the Bonjour India-French Festival. The plot, which initially seems like a Hollywood gangster flick soon turned out to be a dispassionate narrative of an extremely passionate tale. The scenes appeared to be conventional but strangely did not lead to anything, but remained suggestive. There were moments in the film, which cried for tenderness but lead to nowhere.
Ferdinand Griffon (Jean-Paul Belmondo) loses his job at a TV broadcasting company. He is married to an Italian wealthy woman. His wife forces him to attend a party, where he can meet prospective employers. Ferdinand gets bored at the party and the entire conversation seems like clips from advertising copy. He runs away with Marianne Renoir (Anna Karina). She has murdered a man. They flee in a stolen car, rob and kill people, live a Robinson Crusoe life and then face the music. This is too much pulp fiction for one movie to handle, I thought. Now however I have changed my mind.
What stood out in the film, however, remains the treatment of a few scenes, which alter the flavours immensely. For example, a scene opens with Ferdinand sitting on the bed smoking while Marianne walks around the house preparing breakfast for him. She sings to him as the piano softly plays in the background. Suddenly you see a dead body in the room. It lies there and the actors do not react to it. Marianne has apparently killed the man. The excitement and the cold shiver that run down my spine consequently, surprised me and shook me to my very core.
In the course of the story, Godard deals with issues like the Vietnam War, American influences and interpersonal relationships. However, all of these are treated with a subtle sense of humour giving the audience a chance to laugh at them as well as to think about them. He depicts two diverse thought processes of two individuals. Marianne is driven by a quench to live the good life. On the other hand, Ferdinand is always tormented by the urge to be free.u00a0 The need for freedom becomes eloquent in the climax when Ferdinand paints his face blue and wraps it with dynamite and lights the matchsticks. Incidentally, the French flag is also blue in colour, so his painting his face blue before he frees himself of worldly ties may also have been linked to the political scenario then.
The film, which begins as a puzzle for many like me slowly unraveled in the course of time and as I head home, I carried the film in my heart and mind. Godard plunged me into a sea of emotion -- love, hatred, and death.u00a0 He forced me to drown and yet kept me afloat and alive throughout his brilliant celluloid journey.
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