Review of Breathless (2009) by Joshua B — 26 May 2012
Jean-Luc Godard's debut film is a work of magic not for its narrative structure or its dramatic pathos. Indeed, it has little of either, and that seems to be Godard's sly point. After all, this is one of the definitive films of the French New Wave, and its use of jump cuts, location shooting, and utter disregard for the "rules" of how films were made a the time is characteristic of its utter coolness.
Godard plays fast and loose with convention like his characters do with, well, life. When we first meet Michel (Jean-Paul Belmondo), he steals a car and shoots a policeman. He spends most of the film, then, hanging out in Paris with his American girlfriend, Patricia (the radiant Jean Seberg), smoking cigarettes behind big sunglasses while imitating his idol, Humphrey Bogart.
Godard pays homage to the aloof American anti-hero culture while he lampoons the notion of Paris as the romance capital. Yet in the end, both the couple and Godard ponder the ramifications of a life spent in indifferent distance from the world.
This review of Breathless (2009) was written by Joshua B on 26 May 2012.
Breathless has generally received very positive reviews.
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