Like Breathless, Pierrot le Fou is the story of a couple on the run, but five years after his first feature, Godard has re-un-learned everything. Rife with spontaneity, improbability, and absurd dialogue, the film reminds one that Godard’s films were once not only liberating and (literally) revolutionary, but also damn funny. Even with the director’s persistently self-serious dismantling of the Hollywood idiom, there is the simple pleasure of watching Anna Karina and Jean-Paul Belmondo (hottest couple ever!) frolicking around Southern France with wild foxes, comic books and a small arsenal, impersonating Americans and spouting lines like “You’re impossible! You talk to me with words and I look at you with feelings.” As with Two or Three Things I Know About Her (a film I prefer slightly, if only for that cup of coffee), much hard-thinkin’ would be required to sort it all out, but one can always sit back and simply watch the madness. Somehow, it all makes perfect sense in the end, with the image of Belmondo wrapping his head with dynamite.
On a side note: Pierrot would make an excellent double-feature with Badlands.
by Leo Goldsmith | Source: Fox Lorber DVD
17 Mar 2005 12:13 PM | Comments (1)
This would be my second favorite Godard, right after CONTEMPT. Some dislike the film for the aforementioned reasons; I, on the other hand, love it precisely because of that.
It’s a splendid film.
thethirdman4@hotmail.com
18 March 2005
6:33 AM