Godard : Breathless

 

Almost gave up on the film right at its erotic climax. The story and mood were as inane as pornography - though the lovers conjoin beneath covers so it’s not x-rated . I couldn’t care less about what happens to them. Utterly amoral, the swaggering French beau does whatever he feels like, carelessly living from moment to moment. His American girlfriend is almost as bad, but she’s ten years younger - moving to Paris and the Sorbonne to explore how it feels to have an adult brain in an adult body. 

 And yet - well it is a beautiful film, full of light and space and energy, enhanced with a breezy, jazzy soundtrack. And it’s such a love letter to America, our cars, girls, movies and music. Gives me a patriotic tingle. 

 Being conquered is one kind of national humiliation- but even worse is being liberated - and somehow a reaction to that is being played out here. Our French antihero’s wartime experience was sneaking up to shoot German sentries. The loyal companions who try to help him in the end must have been his old comrades. Why else want to help such a goof? Meanwhile his sometime journalist American girlfriend is covering a great parade celebrating Eisenhower meeting De Gaulle. 

 The film seems to express a postwar malaise of humorous nihilism in France, just as “Good, Bad, Ugly” did for Italy five years later. It’s fun right from the very beginning as our antihero steals a car, brushes off his female accomplice, races through the countryside shooting his gun in the air, and then into a pesky motorcycle cop. The subject matter may be the same, but it’s the very antithesis of film noir. Nothing is sad, dark, and lurking. Zero tension and anxiety. Yet it also feels far more like reality, avoiding a meta-narrative to attend to each emerging moment of existence.

 And it’s even fun in the end, as the mortally wounded criminal staggers down the street and then flops on the pavement with a dramatic flourish. The final seconds are perfect. The cop bends over to hear his last words: “this is disgusting “, then tells the girl that he said “you are disgusting”. Nonplussed, she asks “what does disgusting mean?” Then she salutes him by imitating his signature gesture by wiping her upper lip. 

 Ah, to live free and die young. The life of a true poet. Wonder what her next boyfriend will be like. Probably not another criminal; she came much too close to losing her work permit. 

 ******** 

 The action in this film is driven by the young hoodlum, but it’s mostly about the femme fatale. She’s much smarter and in control. She’s the intellectual, he’s the dolt. She’s enjoying her young life, he’s losing his. He’s driven by sex, she plays at it.  She’s becoming an adult. He died an adolescent

the awkward death of a clown

Agnes Varga : One Sings, the Other Doesn’t

 

The story of two head strong young women, Suzanne and Apple, in the sixties. Both defy their parents, make impractical decisions, and spend the rest of the movie overcoming the consequences. And I’m pulling for both of them. The joys of motherhood coexist with the need for abortions. The quirky reality of individual lives coexists with feminist ideology. The two coexist with each other, even if infrequently at great distances. We first see them together in the photography studio of the father of Suzanne’s children - and in one sense, we never leave it because he is not an ordinary shutterbug. Like the film, he is trying to capture the essence of contemporary women as they are, not as men would like to see them. And probably, just like the maker of this film, finances are an issue. He cannot make a living doing what he loves. His suicide launches both women into the rest of their lives which are tracked by a narrator from there on out. 

 Curiously, the film is partly a musical - because that is Apple’s life. The songs and performances are as goofy as she is. This is not a star is born movie. Thankfully,the skits are short enough to not become too annoying. Not sure how she and her crew can afford to keep their vans running. Perhaps her parents pay for that like they once paid rent for an apartment. Suzanne is the more conventional of the two as she builds a career and opens a center for pregnant women. Eventuality she will acquire a sweet, loving husband. 

 No great drama here - but I was pulled into their lives by their combination of risk taking, idealism, and selfishness. They were part of the women’s movement of that era. And their story was never predictable. Suzanne did eventually settle into a conventional life, but only because that’s where love took her. And who knows where Apple will go 

Agnes Varda : Cleo from 5 to 7

 

  

 

DEATH AND THE MAIDEN

( one reviewer claims this hangs in Cleo’s apartment, but I could not find it)

An attractive, vulnerable young chanteuse floats through two hours of life in Paris. She’s eye candy for men, but the film was made by another attractive young woman who makes a woman’s self awareness of beauty a recurring theme. There’s a proliferation of mirrors.

 What’s challenging for viewers is that all the important details of her life are sketched out in a three minute tarot card reading at the very beginning - and you must pay close attention.  Being skeptical of such things, I let it slip by on first viewing. Later, when I realized that the psychic was actually a narrator laying down background for the story, I had to rewatch that section four times to catch every detail. Without it, you won’t comprehend the two major relationships that will soon be ending.

 A widowed older woman adopted her as something like a daughter and then introduced her to a prosperous gentleman who became her lover. He kick started her career as a popular singer. BTW, the “5 to 7” in the title refers to the hours between work and family when adulterous French men customarily visit their mistresses - which is indeed when this lover visits Cleo. 

 At the end of the two hours, she is scheduled to receive the results of her biopsy. Does she have cancer? The fortune teller reads her palm and concludes she is doomed. But maybe all that’s doomed is her life as a woman/child protected  but also used by others. As Cleo puts it: “ everybody spoils me, nobody loves me”.  The protagonist does a lot of traveling through Paris in those two hours - and each place she stops seems to offer a lesson. Her art model friend teaches that naked bodies can be thought of just as shapes. The model’s boyfriend plays a short movie that teaches things are good or bad according to how we choose to see them. The young man in the park teaches her about a more mutual kind of love. And yes, he is a soldier - the Mars who connects with the Venus/Astarte card from the Tarot. And these two hours occur on June 21, the day that the astrological sign of Gemini becomes Cancer.

 So there’s a sense that this is a fable about archetypes  following patterns.as ancient as the seasons.    Is there a happy ending? Well…. Cleo’s anxiety does abate despite the diagnosis that requires treatment. And she is looking into a man’s eyes as possibly she has never done before. But the fortune teller did read her palm as doom - and she has yet to be proven wrong

*********

Note: *The fortune teller uses two different decks of cards, picking out possible connections in each to compile an ongoing story. The second deck is the older one, the “Marseilles”, with the final card picked being the “death card” (#XIII). Dreadful but as well designed as the windows in a Medieval cathedral. 

 *Using the first deck, the fortune teller begins her reading as follows:

 Was your mother a widow? (Cleo answers “No”)

 You have a close friend who’s a widow And she’s a questionable influence 

But she’s devoted to you 

She took you away from your home life 

As a result, you met a kindly generous man He made your artistic career possible

Most reviews of this film identify Angele as a maid or assistant. But I believe she is the “close friend” mentioned above.  All the other key characters mentioned in the reading  appear in the film that follows: the lover, the doctor, the talkative young man.  

Angele’s relationship to Cleo is rather strange - at least to Americans.  She has taken in an attractive young woman whom she then introduces (panders?) to a prosperous older man who is “generous”  to her.  Presumably he pays the rent on the apartment where the two women are living - in return for privileges taken between 5 and 7.

That feels creepy to me, but Angele does seem to be loving - and Cleo  can now afford to leave whenever she chooses

And if you ask Google AI 

“ what is the best depiction of a tarot card reading in a movie?”

you will read what makes this one so good.

This is the kind of film I look forward to viewing periodically throughout what remains of my life. I’m pretty sure there is much more to discover through  all its moments, gestures, and meanings. The texture is   as dense as a Bruegel painting - and it’s quite a tour through the bustling streets of Paris.

The film centers on the details of one person’s life - but it’s not really about her. She is a tiny speck on an enormous canvas. Whether she lives or dies is of no consequence.