JasparLamarCrabb Jean-Luc Godard's extremely entertaining ode to the American pulp novel. Sami Frey and Claude Brasseur convince Anna Karina to help them steal a stash of loot from her aunt's house. Or does she? Godard's most playful film has only an occasional straight narrative and is infused with a lot of funny episodes (from the trio passing notes while attending English class to the now famous Madison dance scene). Karina, 24 years-old but looking like a teenage school girl, is exceptional and she's very well paired with both Frey and Brasseur. The music by Michel Legrand is a big plus as is Raoul Coutard's striking B&W photography, capturing a bleak 1964 Parisian winter. The telling narration is by Godard himself. Based on the novel by the American author Dolores Hitchens.

Charles Herold (cherold) Band of Outsiders has been described as a "Godard film for people who don't care much for Godard." As it happens, I can't stand Godard, who for me represents the worst of French Cinema. I hate most French films because they seem to just be two hours of people dully philosophizing and talking at each other. Sometimes French films are actually extremely (Wages of Fear, Hiroshima Mon Amour, Tall Blonde Man with One Black Shoe, City of the Lost Children) but I feel like most of the French movies I've seen in my life were exactly what I hate about Godard.So, how is Band of Outsiders for someone who hates Godard? Kind of a mixed bag. There are wonderful sequences in this movie. One in which the three main characters decide to have a minute of silence, another where they dance while the narrator tells you what they're thinking. And there are other moments that involve long, boring conversations that have no interest to them.Sometimes you get a little of both. There is a scene where a teacher endlessly reads Shakespeare, and at first it seems dull and like it's going to go on forever. But there is an interesting silent flirtation that starts up during the reading that is rather fascinating.So this movie gives me some understanding of what Godard is trying for in his films, I think. And it makes me understand why Hal Hartley, who I love, has said Godard is a major influence (Hartley's films also have long conversations with people talking at each other, but his dialog is quirky and fascinating, which is very un-Godard.The story involves a love triangle and planned robber featuring a dumb woman and two men, one a major creep and one a minor creep (predictably she likes the major creep better). Like most French new wave films that pay tribute to genre film making, Godard has drained most of the energy and suspense out of the crime genre in this film, so the story is never particularly compelling and the movie's slight twists are poorly done and seem like an afterthought. But there is some interest generated in the interaction between the three protagonists.This movie is sort of Godard lite, which is why I found it pretty watchable. I would say it's worth watching, even though ultimately it's still far inferior to the handful of French films I have loved.

Ilpo Hirvonen Bande a part or Band of Outsiders, directed by Jean-Luc Godard is one of the most important films of the French New Wave. It has had a tremendous influence on modern filmmakers such as Aki Kaurismäki, Martin Scorcese and Wim Wenders. It's one of the keys for the one trying to figure out the secret of French new wave. Band of Outsiders might be a little hard to understand if one's unfamiliar with Godard's own influences: Robert Bresson, b-class film-noir, neo-realism and especially Jean Rouch. Godard admired Jean Rouch who made sociological, fictive documentaries such as Moi, un noir (1958), The Mad Masters (1955) and La pyramide humaine (1961). Jean Rouch tried to combine reality and fiction, to understand the dynamic relation between them. Jean-Luc Godard clearly builds his films around this philosophy of film; the combination of reality and fiction - both of which can never be separated from each other.Band of Outsiders is both a tribute to American b-class crime films and a poetic description of Parisian suburbs. Three amateurs (Anna Karina, Sami Frey, Claude Brasseur) become acquainted at an English class and eventually begin to plan a small heist. In the middle of the encounter and the heist, the group of three has time to dance, chit-chat, act crime scenes, sit still and quiet for one minute and run through Louvre in a new record time.Jean-Luc Godard himself called Band of Outsiders a "suburb western" and to my mind that's maybe the best description one can give about it. Alongside with Breathless, The 400 Blows, Cleo from 5 to 7 and Hiroshima, mon amour, Band of Outsiders is one of the biggest films from the new wave era. Jean-Luc Godard was one of the five essential filmmakers, editors of Cahiers du Cinema, of the Nouvelle Vague (Truffaut, Rohmer, Chabrol, Rivette). They represented a generation of filmmakers who loved cinema, they all wrote a great deal of studies, articles and reviews about films in their influential magazine Cahiers du Cinema. They wanted to stabilize the position of the director not the producer, as the auteur. Band of Outsiders is perhaps the biggest tribute to cinema from all of the films by the Nouvelle Vague directors.The film is part of a certain era in Jean-Luc Godard's career. He started by making fictional shorts and documentaries until 1960 when he got to make his first feature Breathless. Shortly he came across with a young model Anna Karina and instantly fell in love with her. He made six films with her during four years; all the progression of love, the climaxes of it and the disappearance of it can be seen in the films Godard made during these four films: the ones with Karina and the ones without. Bande a part still represents the playful, joyful era of Godard which ended in the following year when he made the scary futuristic vision, Alphaville (1965). But he didn't want to end his and Anna's journey to that dark, pessimist sci-fi and still made one more film with her, Pierrot le fou (1965) in color.Alain Resnais, Agnes Varda, Jacques Demy and Chris Marker represented a group of different kind of French new wave filmmakers; often called the 'left side'. They were politically much more aware compared to the film freaks of the Nouvelle Vague. In Godard's early days he had nothing important to say with his films, he tried to search for new dimensions of narrative and to challenge the limitations of cinema. So the one who seeks for a political message or a deep study of humanity from Band of Outsiders will find oneself in a dead end and I think that's exactly what happened to me on my first viewing, but after a few years times have changed and I've become much more aware of the French new wave and Godard.This certainly doesn't mean that Jean-Luc Godard wouldn't be political but during the 'Anna Karina' era his films were playful, light and joyful with the exception of Alphaville. After he broke up with Anna Karina, whom he first married, he started making different kind of films: political essays, films about different loves such as La chinoise and Week End or now in the 21st century: In the Praise of Love and Notre Musique.Band of Outsiders is a wonderful tribute to American b-class films, films that Edgar G. Ulmer and Joseph H. Lewis made for instance: Gun Crazy, Ruthless and Detour. It's a melancholy poetic description of the life in a Parisian suburb and represents an interesting time in Godard's career. It's a real eye-opener for all of who are interested in French New Wave, Jean-Luc Godard's work, his relationship with Anna Karina or poetic narrative.

tjsdshpnd The plot is simple. Two vagabond guys with nothing better to do be- friend a romantic girl in an English class who reveal to them about hidden money (loads of it) in the house where she lives. And like any other respectable vagabonds, these two with the help of the girl off- course decide to steal that. But wait, there are many turns and counter- turns before the climax is actually reached. In typical Godard style, this is romanticism of crime. The viewer knows that a robbery is going to take place in the climax. But what makes this movie special is not just the final robbery, but the lead upto it. The narration by Godard himself along with the passion of the three characters constitute the rest of the movie. The conversation between the characters is intelligently portrayed. Many crime genre loving viewers may argue that except for the climax, there is nothing 'happening' in the movie. Well for me, the conversations and the moments between the three characters were as interesting as the climax. Another praise-worthy part was the cinematography. Godard's love for Paris is reflected by his aerial shots, long shots of the Seine river, The Louvre and other parts of the French capital. Something that Woody Allen does in his movies for New-York. The acting is good. The lead actress is exceptional as a romantic, somewhat dumb but passionate girl who can do anything for love. Well Overall, Not as important to the history of the French New Wave, like Godard's other movies, but surely a treat for his fans. Rating : 7/10