If the above screen grab doesn’t instill a deep, rich urge to run out and see this movie immidiately, it may not be for you. But if it is for you (and we’re out there, ’cause I know some of you by name) you will drool in ecstacy during every moment of this film. “Let’s watch young French people scream about Marxism!” I said as we walked to Film Forum. And the second the movie started that’s exactly what happened. Filled in with little vignettes, crazy editing, tracking shots, direct address, mock-interview, fluctuating sound track — this is Godard at his absolute best. Raoul Coutard’s photography of the summer flat turned revolutionary cell is iconographic. The film not only predicted the events of May 1968, but predicted the haughty media reaction. Godard’s P.O.V. is ambiguious, but the film is marvelous. Funny, peppy, beautiful — loaded with wonderful moments hidden behind “the text” of Jean-Pierre Leaud and les autres basically sitting there and reading the Little Red Book aloud for moments on end. Any movie with a shimmy-and-froog dance routine to the hep number “Mao Mao” can’t be anything other than awesome.
Here’s J. Hoberman’s review and here’s Mao Mao (warning, this song is very catchy.)
