Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Writers: Jean-Luc Godard,
Paul Éluard (poem “Capitale de la douleur”)
Starring: Eddie Constantine,
Anna Karina, Akim Tamirof, Howard Vernon
OK. Let’s get something
straight from the start. I’m not against the “avant garde” or anything like
that. I’ve enjoyed plenty of abstract films. I don’t shy away from weird. But
I’m not a fan of weird just for the sake of being weird. And I’m certainly not
a fan of weird that eschews all values of entertainment.
I’m sure there are plenty of
people that do find Jean Luc Godard’s sci-fi noir “Alphaville” entertaining.
I’m also sure that there are plenty of people that praise it merely because
Godard made it. Godard’s most recent film, “Film Socialisme” was released last
year, and it seems that now most people have given up on praising a film just
because it was made by one of the pioneers of the French New Wave movement, as
well they should. Just because a master made it, doesn’t mean it can’t be a
piece of crap.
In my humble opinion
“Aphaville” is—as the French would say—‘merde.’ I know that is snarky of me,
but I believe Godard often operates in the theater of snark. With “Alphaville”
he’s taken the sci-fi genre and used it for what it was intended, as a
criticism for the world in which we live, but his attitude toward it is
insolent and often just plain adolescent. He doesn’t really have anything new
to say about the world, which is too often ruled by men with too much power who
have lost their ideals.
Perhaps this was the
original sci-fi noir. I don’t know. But he makes little attempt to make this
world believable. Much of the society he depicts is made up of non-sense. This
does not work well in the science fiction format. What makes science fiction
work is defining strict rules. His future is strict, but little of that
strictness has anything to do with rules. It has more to do with just being
shocking or weird. This works against any messages he might have to say about
our world, and reflects much more on his own psychology. The psychiatrist
should never treat himself.
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