Monday, May 15, 2006

A review of "Notre Musique"


Why aren’t revolutions started by the most humane people?
Because humane people don’t start revolutions. They start libraries.
And cemetaries.

Seeing a film by Jean-Luc Godard is always interesting. They are dense, frustrating, wonderful, and challenging. Closer to poetry than narrative filmmaking they explore ideas and images and have some things that are interesting and some things that aren’t. Godard is definitely an acquired taste and not for everyone. I saw a great interview with Godard’s frequent cinematographer Raoul Coutard where he said that parts of Godard’s films may be boring, but they would also have some of the most memorable sequences that you’ll ever see. Notre Musique is divided into three kingdoms that parallel Dante’s Divine Comedy. It combines many ideas together and some work and some don’t, but overall it examines conflict and ways of connecting and overcoming that conflict. When it works, it works very well. Notre Musique isn’t Godard’s best, but it’s worth seeing if you like his work.

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