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After the Greeks and the Renaissance, "la civilisation du cul." Poor Pierrot (Jean-Paul Belmondo), stuck in the bourgeoisie and no longer moonstruck, Yankees and Russkies have seized the enchanted satellite. At the Parisian party where everybody talks in consumerist slogans (cf. Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?), the gruffness of Sam Fuller (in town to film Flowers of Evil) is an oasis. Leave it all behind with the former lover turned babysitter (Anna Karina), their getaway has lights shooting across the windshield like iridescent meteorites. No straight lines, drive into the ocean. "Who are you talking to?" "The audience." Jean-Luc Godard at his most magnificently unsettled, a continuous upheaval of romanticism and despair. Mystery island, Verne's or Bergman's (Summer with Monika), macaws and foxes to replace the underworld thugs on their trail. Masculinity as book depository, "clear, logical, organized," opposite the mercury of the restless heroine, words and feelings at an impasse. (Defoe and Hawks meet in his notebook, "My Girl Friday.") Her name's Renoir and this may be La Chienne, Belmondo aping Michel Simon's rasp states the goal, to outdo Joyce. Corpses in bedrooms, chansons silly and heartbreaking. Tricolore splashes, bloody reds and celestial blues and whites for walls studded with classical canvas and nudie posters. "Uncle Sam's Nephew versus Uncle Ho's Niece," just a bit of street theater for tourists. End of the affair, not Johnny Guitar but In a Lonely Place, Belmondo as Bogart as Godard sadly contemplating the inamorata sailing away. (Later on he's seen calmly munching on a giant hunk of cheese while the Princess of Lebanon chatters on a boat, "a big question mark overlooking the Mediterranean.") The freest and most self-lacerating of films, cinema's most poignant burst of nihilism. "The language of poetry rises from the ruins." Chuck Jones dynamite for the climax, Mizoguchi specters for the closing image (Princess Yang Kwei Fei). Cinematography by Raoul Coutard. With Graziella Galvani, Jimmy Karoubi, László Szabó, and Raymond Devos.
--- Fernando F. Croce |