A symphony in three movements. Read more …
Things such as a Mediterranean cruise, numerous conversations, in numerous languages, between the passengers, almost all of whom are on holiday... Our Europe. At night, a sister and her younger brother have summoned their parents to appear before the court of their childhood. The children demand serious explanations of the themes of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. Our humanities. Visits to six sites of true or false myths: Egypt, Palestine, Odessa, Hellas, Naples and Barcelona.
An interesting and often beautiful work that suffers the pangs of artistic condescension.
Depending on taste, it’s either a hypnotic cinematic collage asking profound questions about European identity, a sly practical joke or just the rambling holiday videos of a madman (if the llamas, donkeys and YouTube cats are anything to go by).
It’s about as fun as a slap in the face. Which is more or less what Film Socialisme is.
Quite apart from the non-drama and the opaque dialogue, the film's maddeningly insistent sound design ensures that you can't even sleep through it.
For unbelievers and ex-believers, Godard is just a fancy-suited emperor, coming to the end of his career-long game of strip poker. Yet this film weirdly tilted me, just a little, away from agnosticism towards the faith.
The whole experience felt like trying to tune into a radio station and only hearing static.
The cumulative effect of this plotless collage is bizarrely comforting and I totally know what JLG is on about (something to do with ownership, sovereignty and old Europe), not that he'd care if I didn't.
Godard pulls lots of filmmaking tricks and there are some stunning images to take the attention away from the lack of a coherent plot.
Impenetrably cryptic, this assemblage of seemingly random images, film clips, celebrity cameos (oh look, there's Patti Smith) and unattributed philosophical musings seems designed to prevent us from working out what – if anything – is going on.
Film may be an easy art indeed, yet Godard is one its most difficult practitioners. He never allows it to become a ‘Saturday night art’ in the words of one of France’s most famous contemporary Left-Wing philosophers, Alain Badiou, a thinker whose film articles have mused over the ease and difficulty available in the art form. He aptly turns up in the film himself.
General release. Check local listings for show times.
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