I don’t know about you but when I think of Godard and the first phase of his work from 1960 to 1965 I think of words like anarchic, fun, subversive, challenging, difficult, frivolous et al… but maybe above all, intellectual. After all here was a man deconstructing what he considered to be a moribund medium, and remaking it in his own image. To discover here a Godard emotionally connected, serious and heartfelt?! Who knew?

This rarely seen gem from 1964 is a fantastic depiction of a woman’s dilemma that could easily have descended into melodrama in lesser hands, but comes off as art of a high calibre indeed. The style of the opening echoes Alain Renais’ masterpiece ‘Hiroshima Mon Amour’, and the spare black and white mis en scene recalls Bresson and Bergman.

From the start we see a meeting of lovers, just hands and arms across a bed. The only extra piece of information he gives us via a ring is she is married. Even though she’s wearing nothing, when the male lover says ‘take it off’, it forces us to recognise his discomfort with it i.e. she’s not married to him. The indications are it’s an unhappy marriage and she’ll leave it for love, our assumptions are challenged when we meet hubby and discover the connection is strong and not easily severed.

Within this melodrama Godard layers his usual riffs on consumerism, Americanism, capitalism and cinema-ism. His muse this time is not his usual star and wife at the time, Anna Karina, but a close facsimile in Macha Meril, the perfect superficial but cool ‘60’s girl. She agonises over fashion magazine dictates of the perfect breast measurements for a woman, and avoids talk of politics with her husbands business associate. She may be a bored middle class housewife, but she is the centre of her own soap-opera script universe. She takes inventory of her husbands flaws or her lovers good points as if she’s deciding on a new dress. Godard sprinkles her travels with incessant shots of advertising hoardings aimed at her demographic, as if she’s unable to escape the ubiquity of commercial demands. Everything is a product to be pitched at, even her desire it seems.

Raoul Coutard shoots in gorgeous black and white and it is as if we are witnessing a film of a photographic exhibiton at times, the framing is so still and deliberate. Interestingly Coutard started his career as a photojournalist. Godard unveils the action with a minimum of fuss, giving Charlotte (Meril) a limited circuit to travel while getting to grips with her dilemma. She seems to have all the mythical ‘60’s freedom women were starting to demand in a fast changing world, and Godard has great fun in showing what’s on offer to the modern woman, only to have her undone by her biology, falling prey to the oldest imperative, procreate or perish. Instantly she has to reassess her worth in light of the pregnancy and it changes how she views both her husband and her lover.

Of course with Godard there are no easy answers, just a fascinating journey with a question mark ending. It may stand as an atypical work in the Godard canon, but it’s assured style and artistic heart mark it as the work of a master. Marvellous.