Now in his mid-70s, director Jean-Luc Godard has not softened his edges or made things easier for his audience. In fact, his whole career has been against softness and ease.
| Lyrical musings: A new study from director Jean-Luc Godard, using a literary conference in Sarajevo as the backdrop for thoughts on war. Enigmatic as always, Godard still has much to say and says it quite lyrically. (In French, with English subtitles.)
Rated: Not rated; probably R for subject matter. Now showing: through Jan. 27, Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave., Seattle; 206-267-5380. |
Once the iconoclast of the French New Wave, Godard for some years now has been turning out personal projects that fall somewhere between essays and abstract art. His latest is “Notre Musique,” a completely characteristic musing on war.
The movie begins with a 10-minute, near-wordless montage of images of war, some of them horrifying – both newsreel footage of the real thing, and scenes from Hollywood movies. You begin to wonder whether the title refers to war itself – is the waging of war “our music”?
Godard then shift gears, to something vaguely like a story. People arrive in Sarajevo for a literary conference; one of the people, in fact, is Jean-Luc Godard, invited to give a lecture. (It must be said that the white-haired director, puckishly puffing on a fat cigar, plays himself with great relish.)
His own comments, strewn throughout the movie, are often penetrating, sometimes mysterious. That’s Godard. When someone wonders why humane people are never the ones starting revolutions, he says, “Humane people don’t start revolutions. They start libraries.”
We spend most of the time following a young Israeli journalist (Nade Dieu) as she ponders issues about the Middle East: suicide bombings, the contentious war between Israelis and Palestinians.
Godard creates free-floating scenes within this framework, including interviews with philosophers and writers. The attendees at the conference include a couple of American Indians, and Godard draws links between post-Columbus America, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East, stirring together a political brew that the viewer can sample as he likes.
As usual, Godard uses quotations, musical snippets, and photographs to punctuate his discourse (including one startling photo that looks like Hiroshima but is actually Civil War-era Richmond, Va.).
“Notre Musique” ends with a surprising coda, a very poetic section that balances the strident opening. It has a punch to it, but it also has a lyrical quality (and after all these years, Godard still has an unerring eye for a great shot). It’s the quality that makes Godard a great filmmaker, as opposed to someone like Michael Moore, who is a political pugilist.
By setting the film in Sarajevo, Godard provides a constant question. We see the elegant city, with its bullet-marked buildings, and must grapple with the reality of how such a civilized place could erupt in utter barbarism at this point in human history. Godard can still make you think.
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