Roger Burke This is not entertainment...I'd seen Contempt (1963) and Breathless (1960) many years ago and thoroughly enjoyed both. After 1964, I sort missed all that he directed until now, which appeared on late-night TV. And no wonder it was on so late at night...It seems that, as many of us get older and maybe wiser, we like to expound on things philosophical. Bergman did it well, and without resorting to didactic circularity or confusion – and still managed to tell a good story. Woody Allen uses satire brilliantly for the same purpose.However, Godard here uses the bare bones of a simple, quasi-documentary style story – and one that it episodically fractured and with much symbolism – to reflect upon 'what it all means': that is, life, death and the whole damn thing. Using the current Israeli problem with Palestine and vice-versa, he explores the three concepts of Hell, Purgatory and Heaven, using each to show what humanity has done, what it's doing and where it should be going, respectively.The first, Hell, is obvious: with a montage of cuts from a multitude of news and film clips, Godard shows us the extent to which we prey upon each other even as we pray for each other. So, there are some real – all too real – scenes of the dead, the dying and the executed during the many wars that have been documented during the last hundred years or so. Nothing new here at all...The second, Purgatory (a place for waiting), is – well – an exposition about waiting: waiting for a bus, for a train, for a plane, for a meeting to start, for a bridge to be rebuilt, for a nation to recover from war, for people to begin to understand each other. And this is all done within the thin framework of the story of Olga (Nade Dieu), the Jewish journalist from Tel Aviv who is attending a lecture by Godard (playing himself) in Sarajevo, and who is trying to understand why human problems cannot seem to be resolved, no matter what. Significantly, by choosing just Olga, Godard has certainly brought his philosophy to a very personal level, and one with which we can all identify, more or less.All of that is rendered moot when Olga appears to commit an unspeakable act when she returns to Tel Aviv. Perhaps Godard should have told her that it's not the end that matters but the journey to achieve that end?The third – the shortest vignette – is our final destination: as a prisoner of Nature, complete with - American! - border guards who let Olga through to join the happy throng. Essentially: strip off civilization and return to our basics to find out who we really are...I think I'll stick with tackling prejudice, reducing global warming and trying to make a positive difference rather than taking Olga's choice.It's well filmed, as you'd expect from Godard; the music is, at times, quite beautiful to hear; and the Sarajevo mise-en-scene is a stark reminder of our collective sins. An annoying aspect for me, however, is that not all dialog was translated and subtitled; perhaps it wasn't necessary? So, while interesting visually and aurally, I'd recommend this only for those who like to reflect upon existential problems within philosophy.

Claudio Carvalho "Notre Music" is a very ambitious, pretentious and hermetic Jean-Luc Godard's film, divided in three kingdoms: Hell, Purgatory and Paradise like in the Dante's Inferno in the Divine Comedy. Hell shows footages of many wars; Purgatory mixes reality and fiction in Sarajevo; and Paradise is a surrealistic view of a beach "protected" by the American Marines.I found this movie absolutely boring. It seems that Godard wants to challenge the intelligence of the viewers, since to understand his movies the viewer needs to read or listen to his interviews. I respect those who like this French director, but they have to agree that "Notre Musique" is only recommended for fans of Godard and pseudo-intellectuals (there are a lot of them…). My vote is four.Title (Brazil): "Nossa Música" ("Our Music")

Chris_Docker When you go on holiday, do you ever say, "Oh Look! Look at that"? How does sharing it make it different for us? How is the experience lessened when we don't have another person there?A scientist measures position and momentum of a particle, but no matter how accurate the measurements, there is always an uncertainty in the results. This Nobel Prize theory is known as 'Heisenberg's uncertainty principle' and has profound implications for physics and philosophy. (At the atomic and sub-atomic level, an act of observation noticeably affects what is being observed.)Godard mentions Heisenberg through one of his (Heisenberg's) anecdotes. Godard's main interest is funnelled through the cinematic device of shot/reverse angle shot. He examines how it can enlarge understanding of deeper issues. In Notre Musique, Godard is protagonist not for political ideology or social comment. He is flag-bearer. For film. For poetry. For film-as-poetry. Like Maya Deren in her copious writings on cinematic theory, he shoulders the burden of artist-filmmaker with all seriousness, proffering a new language. A different way to view the world. He becomes the lens. We make it our camera."Heisenberg and Bohr," he says, "were walking in the Danish countryside, talking about physics. They come to Elsinore Castle. The German scientist said, 'Oh, there's nothing special about this castle.' The Danish physicist said, 'Yes, but if you say, "Hamlet's Castle," then it becomes special.'Godard stars as himself in this mix of documentary, fiction and montage. He is speaking about on text and image, at the European Literary Encounters Conference in Bosnia. In the Heisenberg story, 'Hamlet's Castle' becomes a literary 'shot/reverse shot.' Godard concerns us with the power of romanticism. His takes on Israeli-Palestinian conflict are refreshingly non-judgemental. Notre Musique calls for a revolution of creative force, "that reinforces memory, clarifies dreams and gives substance to images." Continuing his discourse on the power of the 'real' and the 'poetic,' Godard explains how, "the Jews become the stuff of fiction: the Palestinians, of documentary." (Look at the cinematic output of both, and how Palestinians are defined largely in relation to Israel.) One storyline concerns two young girls visiting Sarajevo – a place 'where reconciliation seems possible.' Judith is an Israeli journalist. She interviews, among others, Palestinian intellectual and celebrated poet, Mahmoud Darwich. (In Darwich's work, Palestine becomes a metaphor for the loss of Eden, for birth and resurrection, and for the anguish of dispossession. As with Heisenberg, this contextual reference is not explained in the film itself. Understanding them is not essential but does enrich the enjoyment of Notre Musique. ) Also at the Encounters is Olga, a Jewish-French student of Russian descent. She videos Godard's lecture and tries to give him a copy. In some ways, she is an alter-ego, a 'shot/reverse shot' of Judith.The concept of dialogue (in a non-verbal sense) is developed as Godard critiques 'shot/reverse shot' as part of his lecture. This cinematic device, usually used when two people are talking to each other, reverses the camera so we see each person seemingly from the other's viewpoint as they speak. The angle provides a mental continuity for us, even though both people are not on screen together. The actual change in camera angle, now a convention, is not really 180 degrees but anything from 120 to 160. The person is slightly offset, rather than directly facing the camera (which would also appear more confrontational).Notre Musique is one of Godard's most responsible, articulate and accessible works. Which makes it doubly shameful that many critics failed to expend the minimal energy required to engage with it, preferring instead to give a banal description that belies their clocking-on superficiality, and usually finishing with a self-satisfied dismissal by 'cleverly' observing that Godard has slightly misquoted something or that his ideas are too hard to follow. As if that mattered. (A more mature analysis was given by BFI writer Michael Witt who said the film, "functions simultaneously as a bulwark against the tyranny of received ideas and as a laboratory for the generation of fresh perspectives.") Notre Musique is structured into a somewhat artificial triptych of Hell, Purgatory and Heaven. The first covers the horrors of war through the ages up to the present. The second, mental scars left on survivors. The brief 'heaven' follows what might probably have been part two's tragic conclusion (related by a disembodied voice over a phone at the end of the second act). Cinematography and editing have all of Godard's hallmark crispness. Some of the subtitling is sloppy, even misspelling Bohr's name (something that will irritate adherents of form over substance).A glimpse of a penguin near the beginning gives it an almost anthropological tone, man portrayed as obsessively armed for the extermination of his own kind. Descending from the 'age of fable,' the hollowness of popular morality is hinted at briefly. A woman on her knees beseeches a soldier. The Lord's Prayer is quoted, "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." Irony is underlined in a refrain, "As we forgive them, and no differently," which is twice repeated. It is not a song that has carried much weight against war. Can the music of artists and poets do any better? Recently I watched a multiplex trailer for 'this summer's movies.' It asked, and 'answered' everything I supposedly 'want' from films. Thrills. Excitement. Explosions. Laughs. Being whisked off to an imaginary world. And so on. I listened to the end of the list waiting in vain for something like, "being mentally stimulated." If you are also unsatisfied by the surfeit of cinematic trash that puts your brain on hold, this film might be for you. If, however, like the critics who simply rate it against competing blockbusters and find it lacking, you maybe do not wish to exercise any of those mental muscles then, like this humble review, it will not be the welcome sunbeam that makes or doesn't make your summer.

robgarza2 "Our Music" is the result of a working man, a man that has been investigating sound and image for so many movies. As time goes by, Godard's images are simpler, but his editing has become tremendously complex.The film rests over Dante's "Divine Comedy": Hell, Purgatory and Paradise. Hell is a montage of war stock material. Purgatory is Sarajevo today and Paradise is plain nature guarded by U.S. Marines. As usual, many of the dialogs are made up of quotes and the author is rarely quoted, because through the editing the made-up phrases become humanity's questioning.By playing with the World's sounds and images, deconstructing time and space, the poetry comes naturally, not forced at all. Godard looks at todays technified world from a distance, mixing things and themes to see what happens, to bring up new possibilities and questions.As usual happens with this French filmmaker, the sound design is astonishing.If you like the work of Godard, you will love this film. If you don't like Godard's work, don't waste your time looking at this gem.