Michael_Elliott
Film socialisme (2010) BOMB (out of 4) How does one go about explaining Jean-Luc Godard's FILM SOCIALISME? I guess you could say that the director just throws at us various film clips. Some take place on a ship. Some take place in Egypt. Some just seem to be random shots of people walking around. Some are film in beautiful HD while others are filmed on what appears to be a very old cell phone. The subtitles are often full of mistakes. It could be that the words are put together to where it's hard to read them. It could be that the subtitles aren't really telling us what the characters are saying. Was there a point to this madness? I think there are two possibilities. One is that Godard wanted to drive people to suicide so he made this film. The other theory of mine is that he wanted to make a film so horrid that his followers would still rave about how great it was. Either way this here is a pretty worthless film and it's not that it's horrible because of a horrible filmmaker. No, it's horrible because the filmmaker knows he's making something that is nothing but a waste of time. The reason Godard does this is beyond me but sitting through this film is quite unpleasant and it makes one realize that this film is so bad that you couldn't even recommend it to those who love bad movies. I'm not going to lie and say Godard is one of my favorite filmmakers because he isn't. There have been highly respected films of his (like ALPHAVILLE) that I simply hated. With that said, I could see why some would be drawn to it. With this movie it's just pure garbage and I must admit that I find it funny reading so many reviews that call this a piece of art and one of the greatest films of the decade. Reading Roger Ebert's review states that Godard showed this film in a four-minute version by playing it with the fast-forward button on high. This here might have been the greatest idea the director ever had.
Christian
Jean-Luc Godard is a reference in cinema and changed the art fifty years ago with a unique challenging style that defied current esthetics and etiquette.His latest work can be described more as an eclectic experiment than any enduring piece of cinema, but it serves to show his mastery of the art and his ability to dissect it in its most basic components before trying to create a different, distinct experience for the viewer. He plays with themes, locations, styles and intermingles with little restriction photos, videos, ambient sounds, silence, music, narrations, monologues, dialogues to delves into a dream-like undefined cinematic discussion.The film does not quite work as a whole, precisely from this lack of focus, but some of the imagery (some sharp and some out of focus, some old and some new, some seemingly meaningless and some full of allegories, etc.), dialogues (existential, simple, social, revolutionary) and intertitles do reach a cord and will be remembered subconsciously or consciously. It's lack of clear content or continuity should not take away from it's task of deconstruction and desire to destabilise our current comforts. In that aspect, Godard grabs the rug under conventional cinema and pulls very hard to make it topple over dumbfounded and confused.There are three segments, each shorter than the previous, but besides being glad to finally leave this seemingly derelict boat and to briefly know a fictional philosophising family, there is not enough distinction between the segments to warrant further feedback at this point. Only that as Godard's life perhaps, and exemplified in the crafty ancient time-telling device in segment #2, time is getting shorter...Maybe we'll get it right some day, may be one of many messages of this remue-méninges.
antcol8
One viewing...only one viewing. I'm going to have to see it again. Very soon - maybe tomorrow. And when I do, maybe I'll revise what I write here. I can't blame anyone who hated it, anyone who was bored. You sit through it, you sit with it, you try to follow all of the political - sociological thinking, and what do you end up with? Not much...But, on the other hand, you can't separate all of the thinking, the questioning from the GESTALT of the film. This is what it is. You look at all of those ugly, saturated, distorted images of morons Disco Dancing on a cruise ship, and you decide - "Oh, I get it: disgust for the Modern World!". But then some of the most beautiful images of the sea - worthy of Caspar David Friedrich. It is a late film - very late. I thought it was going to end so many times. Try to remember that J-L G already announced the End of Cinema 45 years ago, with Weekend. But like Kafka, like Beckett the impossibility of not writing is greater than the impossibility of writing. So he goes on. I admit it - I crashed a couple of times. I've been doing that lately. Overloaded? So it seems. And this film has what to saturate one. What can I suggest? Follow the consistency - how many Godard films have featured long scenes at Gas Stations? Answer: several. With cute girls reading,and talking about that... Just thinking about the coherence and consistency of J - L G's obsessions should keep those of you who compare this film unfavorably to others in the game. He is very tired - yes. But he expresses that more passionately here than in many of his films of the last 30 years.
robert burton
It was eagerly awaited for years,the trailer which was the whole film in fast motion looked ravishing, and it seemed as if in this,perhaps his last film,Godard would deliver his final testament,a summation of all the themes which have run through his work for the last fifty years.From the beginning it looks absolutely stunning.In its high def cinematography the colours are gorgeous,the Mediterranean setting recalling that of Le Mépris ,but whereas the latter film was a profound meditation on European culture and civilisation,here the characters spout banal platitudes about politics or philosophy as the ship sails along past various cities; in the Spanish section there is a scene of a bullfight,in the Italian section a clip from a Rossellini film,it's that predictable.In the final section the film switches to one of Godard's favourite subjects,the daily routine of a family with young children who run a petrol station and have for no apparent reason a pet llama.Here finally the film shows some kind of rapport with its characters but it is already too late.Yet despite its faults it still exhibits all the hallmarks of Godard's style,the brilliance of his framing and editing,the crucial way sound plays against image,but the feeling persists that perhaps he has no longer anything to say.