The Leader

Issue date: 2/20/08 Section: Film

Well, the 2008 Festival of Films in French has come and gone once again. Although countless great films were screened between February 8 and February 17, not all could be covered. Nevertheless, here are impressions of two of the films that were shown, although the Leader can only really recommend "Pierrot le fou". Oh, and if you missed the festival this year, there's always next February, provided a cinematic apocalypse doesn't occur.

"Pierrot le fou"
Jean-Luc Godard is known as one of the pioneers of the French New Wave movement, a 1960s film movement that defined its self by rejecting what were up to that time classic cinematic tropes and structures, while also reaching for broad ideological and philosophical themes, often times challenging dominant societal beliefs. Some call the films of the French New Wave movement surreal, irreverent, distractingly whimsical, or dismayingly absurd. "Pierrot le fou" proves to be many of these things. Yes, it's surreal. The narrative is a disjointed, snaking array of scenes that often lack standard and logical transitions. Yes, it's whimsical. Many of Godard's personal political and social beliefs are conspicuously communicated, often to a humorous end. This is a very self aware film, and it wants the audience to know that. Above all, "Pierrot le fou" is absurd. But then, it has to be. It claims to be about life, after all.

In many ways, "Pierrot le fou" is a classic love story. It has a man. It has a woman. They love each other. They travel together, quarrel, and lay on beaches at midnight, dreamily staring at the unexplainable sheen of the moon far above. They share pillow talk. However, Godard would never appreciate his characters being described as normal Hollywood lovers, nor would he want people to view their relationship as just another love affair. No, what connects Ferdinand (Jean-Paul Belmondo) and Marianne (Anna Karina) is not so simple as love or lust. What connects them is an indefinable passion for all things - for living, most of all. What drives them is a want of adventure, is a desire to be all places at all times, to break through the mundanity of daily existence into a state of pure action, pure enthusiasm, pure being. They commit murder, steal cars, rob tourists, and swindle their way through France in a child-like ecstasy. In its way, their love is pure. They never think about consequences, at least initially. Some have described Ferdinand and Marianne as the French counterculture's Bonnie and Clyde, a duo doomed to love and to die. Another way to look at it is to say they were doomed to live, and their fate is a direct result of that.

Ferdinand is a man bored with his cushy Parisian lifestyle. His wife, the daughter of a wealthy Italian businessman, no longer interests him. While he would prefer to sit in his bathtub for hours reading literature and poetry, his wife forces him to go to small cocktail parties and chat with the Bourgeoisie, finger food tweezed between fat fingers. Even his children cannot provide him with the reward he knows life is capable of delivering. He is a lazy man who has accepted his fate. Where once he held dreams of writing novels and sharing his experience with the world, he now holds nothing. His wealthy existence is unfulfilling. He exists in his head, in his dreams. That is, until Marianne arrives to whisk him away from everything he knows. She is the spark he needs to light the brush pile of his ambition. Unfortunately, the fire she creates becomes difficult to control.

Marianne is the perfect con artist. Anna Karina, who incidentally was married to Godard for many years, excellently portrays the smart, sexy, and impulsive female counterpart to Ferdinand's level-headed and cool anti-hero. With a sordid past, Marianne is a girl on the run from dangerous Algerian mobsters. Unfortunately, because of the narrative structure, her past is never fully elaborated nor is the level of danger ever expressly communicated. Instead, Godard allows Marianne's capricious, often selfish, nature to provide hints to her past exploits and what will become her future crimes. She is a beautifully realized character that's simultaneously as vulnerable as a mouse and as venomous as a snake. Like Ferdinand in the film, the audience is left teetering between sympathy and enmity for Marianne. She is as manipulative, as enduring, and as memorable as Hemingway's Lady Brett Ashley. A lovable bitch, in other words.

From its satire of commercial slogans of the time to its unconventional narrative structure to its absurd finale, "Pierrot le fou" is anything but a conventional Hollywood film. It's smart, dreamy, and fluid in its delivery. Ferdinand and Marianne create a profound cinematic couple and through their voiceovers, in fact, become one person with one stream of consciousness, finishing each other's sentences, filling in the holes of the other's hopes and dreams. With a colorful palette, both visually and aurally, and with enough metaphysical talk to bring a smile to a philosophy TA's lips, "Pierrot le fou" is a blessing on the eyes and on the mind. Ultimately, although its humor never falters, "Pierrot le fou" is a tragedy, one that calls love and truth into question eternally. I'm sure Godard would want it no other way.

"Gabrielle"
"Gabrielle" is a long, almost tedious, look at the deterioration of an upper class marriage. While one could hardly argue it lacks passion, the passion is too focused, too selfish, and too familiar. Yes, it's a film largely hinged on the psychology of its characters. It wants to remind us that these are unhappy people, that these are people consumed with secrets, lies, and facades. "Gabrielle" wants us to see how destructive these kinds of false lives can be, how much ultimate pain they can cause. However, even before the film is half way over, the lesson is well learned. Unfortunately, it's still hammered on for another forty-five minutes.

Based on a novel by Joseph Conrad, "Gabrielle" is a story of despair. Jean and Gabrielle have hosted dinner parties for 10 years. More or less a trophy wife, Gabrielle seems more than happy to play her part. Jean believes their marriage is a happy one. They may not make love or exchange very many words, but he believes their bond is still strong, even if it is unconventional. His assumptions, however, are proved wrong when he discovers a letter from Gabrielle announcing that she's leaving him. In a twist, though, the film really begins when Gabrielle returns, defeated. The entirety of the movie is Jean trying to come to grips with his wife's betrayal and Gabrielle trying to accept the empty void that is her life.

There are clever choices made here. Different scenes appear either in color or black and white, a switch which provides visual variety. However, it is not immediately clear why this is. Also, Patrice Chéreau, the director, uses word prompts not unlike those found in silent movies to convey time, place, and thoughts. Again, the strange creative decision is not unwelcome; it's just not necessarily relevant. By and large, this is the general feeling for the entire film - non-relevance. Jean and Gabrielle are hardly sympathetic characters. No, they are far too rich and self-absorbed. Therefore, when she despairs for not having known love, and he despairs for having loved his wife wrongly for ten years, it is difficult to care for either. And, as the entire film relies on the emotion of these two characters for success, it is difficult to care at all about the movie in the end. Although interesting from an aesthetic and creative point of view, "Gabrielle" can't save itself from its own mundane despair.

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