3X3D

Of course the Godard entry was the reason this omnibus was a must-see. Somewhat paradoxically, though, The Three Disasters is only essential viewing for serious Godard completists, and yet I’m not so sure that those completists will find anything particularly new here—the 3D format notwithstanding—in relation to his late-career body of work… Surprisingly, it was the Peter Greenaway effort, Just in Time, that stole the show for me…

No surprise that the festival’s most brilliant movie was Jean-Luc Godard’s The Three Disasters, an 18-minute 3-D piece that unfortunately is embedded in the 3-D triptych 3×3D, the other two parts of which, by directors who shall remain nameless, are unwatchable. Largely a found-footage collage, it would be no different from the many short spin-offs from Histoire(s) du cinéma that Godard has made over the past 15 years, except that it is in 3-D as you have never seen it before…

The Old Man [JLG] did not fail to deliver: while it will only go down as a minor footnote in his venerable career, and functions mainly as an extended preview for the upcoming Adieu au langage, there is no other way to describe “Les Trois Désastres” than that it is pure Godard… I can unreservedly state that the work is an intense and invigorating experience, more stimulating than anything else at the festival.