Review of Alphaville (1965) by Brett W — 14 Feb 2008

Eddie Constantine stars as secret agent Lemmy Caution who is sent on a special mission to the futuristic city of Alphaville to find the lunatic scientist Professor Braun, destroy his self-developed computer Alpha-60 that has annihilated human emotions in the name of logic and to rescue a society that has become a puppet in the hands of this totalitarian machine and the oppressive regime it installed.

The inhabitants have been zombified. Women are treated as objects. Alphaville is a sci-fi picture coated with a film-noir atmosphere and comic-book violence. It plays like a Philip K. Dick fiction but looks like Dick Tracy.

It is set on a different time in a different Galaxy, but shot in the Paris of the 60's and with cars and human beings instead of spaceships and little green men. Starts off as silly spoof but has enough philosophizing to retain my full attention and interest from start to finish.

I defend the idea that technology can be enemy in some aspects and that people tend to become slaves for technological progress. Yet I don't reject science; Alphaville does also explore contradiction, as not everything that Alpha-60 says is completely senseless, some of it is obviously quite thought-provoking as well.

I also believe that somewhat Capitalism is slowly subduing the functioning of the human heart; repressing emotions, tenderness and love. Godard knows how to stimulate intellect. Anna Karina is absolutely enchanting.

Amazing, nothing I can write will do this tremendous film justice.