Film Review by Michael Parent |
| Week-end (Jean-Luc Godard, 1967) 8.0
Here I have to make a statement, when i first saw À Bout de Souffle five years ago I hated it. I described it to cite myself as an amateurish, dilettant work of a pretentious pseudo critic of Films. Then I watched Le Mépris a year later and finally uinderstood why critics are calling the man a genius filmaker. Then two weeks ago I discovered IMO the best film Godard has made : Pierrot le Fou. Now I am thirsty to discover his major films. It’s in this state of mind that i watched Week-end, produced in the Dziga Vertov group and genred by Godard himself as a Marxist Western. Godard’s films are strong in meanings and they have so many levels that they led us to various interpretations of his work. Well, for Week-end there is a lot to say on this, a declaration of war on capitalism, revolution of the people colonised, the madness of the modern life, the destruction of the Man by the Automobile with the long shot of the traffic jam in the country and so it goes on. It,s a great piece of Godard’s resume but the subjects are a little old fashion and the cocktail molotovs are wet. Today this film seems a little from the past and maybe these subjects must stay there in the trees with the lone drummer. Never as poetic as Pierrot le Fou and never as beautiful as Le Mépris, Week-end is a new beginning for Godard into Marxism with this period of protestation. 2008-09-28 |