I’ve been meaning to see a new Jean-Luc Godard movie for a long time, so was looking forward to seeing this one, which has such an amazing title (“In Praise of Love”) and a great trailer.

It’s unmistakably a Godard movie. The rhythms and titles and use of music instantly define it as such. Half is in colour and half is in black and white and the line between movie and movie-making is slightly distorted, as in Tout va bien and, I think I’m thinking of the right movie, Le Mépris. But overall this movie was a major disappointment for me. It felt like when I first watched the old Godard movies in film class, forced to watch them, not discovering them for myself – and this shouldn’t be the feeling I get when I am discovering it for myself. Paris, my favourite city on earth so far, is all over the film, and it doesn’t work for me. Piano music swells over beautiful faces musing on life. I should love this movie, but I was bored to death – I had to take at least 3 breaks to get through it.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 25th, 2004 at 4:18 pm in Movie Reviews, unrated. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.