Reviews of A Woman Is a Woman
Displaying all 2 reviews
Cinesthesia (aka Duncan)
4Nov10
I’ve heard several sources refer to A Woman is a Woman as the warmest, most accessible film in Godard’s body of work, and I’m not sure why. Yes, it’s less discursive, academic, and political than the rest of his 60s films, but it’s just as distancing and hardly less impenetrable. If anything, it shows how being accessible really isn’t Godard’s strong point. Given Godard’s penchant for experimentation—and the way he works without a script—the plot doesn’t really sustain intrigue, and unlike such denser works as Pierrot le fou and Contempt, it doesn’t have the benefit of adding up to anything with intellectual or emotional weight. This is not to say there aren’t pleasures, because there are: the back-alley “dance” scene, the opening credits, Godard’s love of wordplay, and Belmondo and Karina. But they’re an island chain, stretched out in a row without connecting. There’s no easy way into Godard—loving him can start with hating him—and A Woman is a Woman is a slight entry in his 60s run.
- Currently 3.0/5 Stars.
asuraf
21Dec08
Perhaps drunk on the trip of an instant success (“Breathless”), or disillusioned by the shelving of a personal political bombshell (“Le Petit Soldat”), Jean-Luc Godard’s third film is shockingly self indulgent, and though it remains a lynchpin in the progression of the New Wave (with cinematography by Raoul Coutard, and stunning jump cuts), seen today it’s almost unbearable. The beautiful Anna Karin stars as a sprightly striptease dancer whose fiancé (Jean-Claude Brialy) doesn’t share her want for a child, so to spite him, she seeks the companionship of his best friend, played by “Breathless” star Jean-Paul Belmondo. The story isn’t the problem, it’s Godard’s execution; modeling the film as a “musical comedy”, he peppers the soundtrack with fits and bursts of annoying musical interludes that do little to complement the performances or the story. Of course you can argue that that is Godard’s point, as it would be later in his career, that to make pure cinema is to utilize genre elements in your own unpredictable and symbolic fashion, but to use them in such a way that you’re more contemptuous than honorable, is to suggest an ego beyond its own limitations.
- Currently 2.0/5 Stars.