Masculin Féminin
Jean-Luc
Godard again again…
If you have
been following my posts you probably know what is coming and, yeah, we are
going down that lane again.
“Masculin Féminin”
is not plot driven (no surprise there), instead we a following a young man
called Paul (Jean-Pierre Léaud) as he encounters people in Paris. Paul meets
his friend Robert (Michel Debord) who is politically active on the extreme
left, which seems to match Paul’s political leaning. He then proceeds to meet
Madeleine (Chantal Goya), an aspiring singer, and her friends Catherine (Catherine-Isabelle
Duport) and Elisabeth (Marlène Jobert). He moves in with them and they go out
together. Meanwhile Paul interviews a number of women about all sorts of
things.
That sound
harmless enough, if a bit boring. What is special here is 1) that Paul is a
jerk and 2) that all dialogue is terribly artificial in the shape of proclamations
or interviews.
The second
item was apparently a deliberate decision by Godard, though I do not understand
why, except to create an alienation between the characters, but the sad result
is that they mostly sound like idiots.
The former
is even more mystifying. Paul shouts at people and picks up arguments where
none is needed. He seems restless and takes action and offense of anything. I
would suggest that he reduce his caffeine intake, but it is probably not as
simple as that. Considering how he is treating Madeleine and her friends it is
surprising that she does not kick him out. Seriously he is behaving like an
asshole.
So, what we
have here is on the one hand a very real looking movie in documentary style
following trivial lives, but also a high degree of surreal artifice where
people behave and speak weirdly and not just Paul but random people he meets
will put themselves on fire or stab themselves and all Paul think of is the
revolution against the establishment he seems to be planning.
It is an
idea that could be interesting but in the hands of Godard, good ideas are
wasted. Nothing new here. I never felt that this movie was trying to tell me
something, at least something I would be marginally interested in, yet it seemed
so intend on telling that story that the rest was unimportant.
What I did
like was all the pictures of life in Paris in the mid-sixties. Peel away the
surreal elements and there is a lot to look at.
Conclusively
I probably liked this movie a little better than the typical Godard movie, but
there is a long way from there and up to actually liking a movie. And there are
more Godards to come. Somebody should send a letter to the List editors…