4/5 "...VAST, COSMIC, QUASIMETAPHYSICAL ARTISTIC DREAMS"
  by Robin Simmons (Palm Springs area, CA United States)
Jean-Luc Godard, the darling of French "New Wave" cinema, premiered this film at the '65 Venice Film Festival (where it was Booed!). Starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina as a sexy couple who hit the road to escape the bourgeoisie, it is much more than a road movie.

Godard called the characters Belmondo and Karina portray "the last romantic couple." This was Godard's tenth feature in six years.
Playful, farcical, satiric and at times light-hearted,, thje story of a husband running off with his ex-lover (and child's baby sitter) afforded an opportunity to make fun of consumerism and politics in this episodic and meandering tale rich in metaphor and meaning.

A pop-art sensibility pervades this energetically acted film that is enhanced by the emphasis of primary colors and the vivid Technicolor cinematography of Raoul Coutard (who approved this stunning Crierion hi-def transfer).

Although Godard said he didn't use a script, Lionel White's hard-boiled novel Obsession, seems to be the source of whatever plot the picture itself has. Another source element is Raymond Queneau's comic novel from the `40s, Pierrot Mon Ami. Which in turn inspired the 1959 Euro hit "Mon Ami Pierrot" which Karina sings to Belmondo whom she calls Pierrot, which invariably moves him to say, "that's not my name." (He's "Ferdinand" in the movie.)
Godard's films are filled with allusions and references. Often to movies themselves. In fact, the actors do not hesitate to break the "fourth wall" and sometimes turn to the camera to make comments directly to the audience.

Godard's oft-repeated description of the film is especially precise, it even refers to a central image in the opening scenes. He said, "Life is the subject with CinemaScope and color its attributes. In short, life filling the screen as a faucet fills a bathtub that is simultaneously draining at the same rate."
This film is, on one level, a celebration of art for art's sake. It's contextual meaning is more obscure and layered.
Criterion's breathtaking Blu-ray release warrants a second look at this enduring cinematic treasure.

Generous extras include an interview with Anna Karina, a 50 minute documentary about Godard's life and films, archival interviews with Godard, Belmondo and Karina. An enclosed booklet has a fascinating essay by film historian and "New Yorker" writer Richard Brody who says: "Exactly as Godard intended, `Pierrot Le Fou' reflects appropriately vast, cosmic, quasimetaphysical artistic dreams of a Balzacian grandeur." What a great sentence. There are many more like that! Also in the booklet, an erudite review by Andfrew Sarris and an interesting 1965 interview with Godard.

4/5 Pierrot Le Fou ( Blu-ray review ) Do I really have to take this seriously? I think not!
  by dv_forever (Michigan, USA)
First let me get the technical specifications out of the way. This is a gorgeous looking transfer of a beautifully photographed film from the 1960s. Criterion did their job with this transfer. The colors simply pop off the screen. The color scheme was designed to be extremely stylized by Godard and his famous cinematographer Raoul Coutard and this Blu-ray brings the visuals to the screen with striking clarity. The whole picture is vivid and you get a real sense of immersion in the textures. This is one of those Criterion releases I had to have even though I don't like the film that much. I certainly love the look and even people who hate artsy cinematic snobbery like Pierrot Le Fou can sit still for awhile and just look at the pretty pictures. It looks much better visually than most mainstream films coming out today. The audio is perfect for what it is, a basic two channel monaural track. It's the picture that pops! The special features are extensive, including an interview with Anna Karina from recent days. Perhaps the most obnoxious feature is the Pierrot Primer, a long-winded analysis of the first half hour or so of the movie by filmmkaer Jean-Pierre Gorin. He later collaborated with Godard on some film projects.

Now, I have heard my share of pretentious commentary tracks on Criterion from critics and intellectual snobs of all stripes but this commentary may take the cake as the most over thought, over analysed procession of verbiage I have ever encountered outside of a hardcore film theory book. The commentator discusses counterpoint and narration interlaced with editing techniques. It sounds like he's talking about J.S. Bach when in fact Godard is merely toying with technique and this film theory nonsense makes one want to pull their hair out. I don't doubt that Godard really is that pretentious, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt since he's not the one doing the voice commentary here.

With that in mind, allow me to unveil my own views of Pierrot Le Fou and Jean-Luc Godard in general. It's been said many times before that Godard is the most radical of the French New Wave filmmakers, even going farther than Alain Resnais. Pierrot Le Fou was made when Godard was in his best form, before he turned to radical politics and his films became less and less coherent. Show this movie to anyone raised on mainstream studio fare and they won't know what to think of it except that it's boring. The mainstream viewer would be absolutely right in that opinion since at this point of his career Godard cared less and less about mere entertainment or telling a good story than he did with satirizing consumer culture, the middle class, American imperialism and all that jazz but encased always in this pop art sensibility with the girls and the guns and the crime stories. He was also deeply influenced by Bertold Brecht and his alienating effect. This could be an explanation of the apathy and boredom one feels when watching much of Godard's body of work. Not all of course as there are more emotional films such as "My Life to Live" in the Godardian canon. Godard's later works would be even more alienating but Pierrot Le Fou is already there. Forget about the superficial jump cuts, the misplaced dramatic musical cues that end abruptly, the characters acknowledgement of the audience, even directly conversing with the audience at points... forget about all of that shallow postmodernism and ask yourself what is this film about? Politics, love, death, war, consumerism, cinematic form? The famous Sam Fuller cameo speech can be used as an explanation I suppose. It all feels completely beside the point. There is no heart and soul in these cleverer than though films and more than 40 years later, one can even ask, who cares?

Truffaut is far less intellectual than Godard and yet Truffaut has heart. Resnais has a sense of cinematic form that eludes Godard in most respects. As attractive as the Godard films are and they all look great, I always felt he was the kind of French fraud that one reads about. He doesn't hold a candle to Robert Bresson. I think Godard would agree as he deeply respects Bresson. The main thing I dislike about Godard and this can be applied to other French New Wavers but none as much as Godard... the main thing I dislike is his pop art sensibility. I know this kind of thing was hip and cool back in the 60s and it was the height of trendiness but I can't stand it! I have the same revulsion for Quentin Tarantino's obsession with blaxploitation films, kung-fu spectacles and other sub-genres from the 1970s. It clouds Tarantino's aesthetic in kitsch and here is Godard, Tarantino's antecedent clothed in kitsch as well. Granted, that to compare the intellectual Godard to the lowbrow take of Tarantino is a disservice but Tarantino has many times claimed Godard's influence. Godard is one of the heights of cinematic modernism but also the blatant forerunner of postmodernism. His sensibility just doesn't grab my attention like Antonioni, Bergman or once again Bresson. All three are far more penetrating modern voices.

I have to say, beyond everything I mentioned. The one thing that grates on my nerves about Godard is that his films are anti-spiritual, almost always especially at that point in his career. His work always dealt with objects and humans as objects and commodities. He was deeply affected by Marxism and his movies are materialistic in nature, never attempting to ascend beyond the world of flesh and greed. Sometimes Godard tackles religious matters head on as in his film "Hail Mary" which was criticized by the Pope! Watching that film just proved it for me. Godard is not a spiritual artist and it's hopeless to look in his work for some kind of transformative ideal. Still he did photograph a lot of pretty things in beautiful ways and here we have a genuinely gorgeous Blu-ray ripe for decadent home viewing on your 1080p HDTV.

3/5 I'll be the token Philistine
  by A. Smith (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma United States)
First of all, I like The Inscrutable Art Movie as much as the next guy. Maybe this movie says something about when it was released (I was about three years old) that is lost today (e.g. the Vietnam references). Setting aside such ambiguosities (I just made that up) as "nihilist" and "groundbreaking" and (God forbid) "deconstruction," what is this movie about? Even "Last Year at Marienbad" is about something, or many things (or "nothing," you choose), and it does the job quite well. (Funny, all the talk about what THAT movie means... check out the original trailer at Criterion's website and you'll see it was marketed as a cinematic version of Mad Libs.) And what about "2001: A Space Odyssey"? Lots of folks don't "get" that movie either, but it's a heck of a lot of fun to watch.

Which is more than I can say about Pierrot le Fou. I won't be cranky and gratuitously mean and give it one star. It's not the Worst Movie Ever. I won't whine that I wasted two hours of my life, blah blah. But a friend once offered this test for a movie's worth: In the middle of movie, do you care about any of the characters or what happens to them? I don't mean you have to like any of them. In this movie, married guy goes wild, but what he and his wild Eve are "looking for" is never explained. If they want self-destruction, then make that a credible (not necessarily smart) choice. (If this girl is such a rebel, then what's she doing working as a babysitter? How about breaking into parking meters or something? But I quibble.) Visually, the Criterion DVD is beautiful. But the movie is like watching one long music video. And music videos, with all their cliches, get tedious really fast. I likened this movie to "Pulp Fiction," and I wasn't particularly wowed by that, either.




3/5 Are We All Talking About the Criterion Collection Edition?
  by S. Pactor (San Diego, CA United States)
I'm reviewing the Criterion Collection edition, which looked like a fine transfer to me. If you are a Godard completist, I suppose this version would be on your list. Thee disc of extra is a good example of what the Criterion collection can be all about- a full disc of goodies- great if you are super into this movie or Godard. Personally, I don't like this movie, which is why the rating isn't higher, but it's a handsome piece to own. And it's the Criterion Collection so... what choice do you have?

5/5 the summation of the new wave
  by Mitchel Knight (Portland)
Godard's first ten films are characterized as his most "new wave" of films (why Maculin/Feminin and Weekend aren't "new wave" is beyond me. Perhaps it has to do with Anna Karina and Godard's separation, though they had divorced before filming Alphaville). Anyway, if this indeed is his last new wave film, it serves as a sort of masters thesis of everything that he made before.

Ferdinand/Pierrot (Jean-Paul Belmondo, wonderful) lives an unsatisfying life of domesticity with his rich, vapid Italian wife. Marianne (the beautiful, amazing Anna Karina), a since forgotten fling of Ferdinand's appears in his life once again, and the two undertake a spree of murder, poverty, cunning, theft and isolation. One of the bonus features on the second disc describes Pierrot as the reverse Breathless (Godard's first full length), and it makes sense. Here, Godard is self-referential, making sly gestures and nods at his previous work. Some of my favorite lines of any Godard film are here: Pierrot glad he hates spinach and his old man's monologue on writing and Joyce. Raoul Coutard's filmography is, once again, stunning. The film is awash in blues, in comic book two-tones, which Karina's red dress stands out as an ode to non-conformity.

Of course this is a long film, and though its structure is completely linear, the odd sense of time in it may detract viewers (I for one love it). Different elements and characters seem to be thrown in at odd times, but eschewing the normalcy and heightening the artificiality of cinema was Godard's intentions. Some might see this as arty pretension, well it is. But as a film lover I'm rather tired of movies I watch once and everything is handed to me neatly. Anything demanding close repeated watching is the only thing worth watching, personally. But really, this movie isn't so over everyone's heads as to be unenjoyable to those unfamiliar with Godard's work. It's funny, sad, exciting, and most of all enigmatic.

Now, if you've seen Godard's previous nine films you'll want to see this, unless you didn't enjoy them, which begs the question Why did you watch them? Belmondo and Karina are at once very archetypal characters in the Godardian universe, but they're also very much distinct from the other characters they had played. For instance, they seem to be the complete opposites of their A Woman is a Woman roles. Karina here plays the feisty, un-containable murderess always on the move, whereas the earlier film all she wants is a kid. Belmondo here is a sensitive, artistic brooder, with a playful side to be sure, but in Woman he is a horny, egocentric, calloused hanger-on.

Also, the end of Pierrot is one of the most abrupt, unexpected, wonderfully humorous and disconcerting of any I have ever seen!

So, while I whole-heartedly recommend this to anyone interested, perhaps it'd be best to acquaint yourself with his earlier films to get a gist of Godard's intentions as a filmmaker. If you're new to his work, I suggest this order: Breathless, Band of Outsiders, A Woman is a Woman, Contempt, Alphaville, My Life to Live, Pierrot le Fou. And if you like those then watch Masculin/Feminin and Weekend. All the films mentioned above are outstanding, amazing, brilliant films worth a million Jurassic Parks, Mama Mias, Titanics and ET's.