A.K.A.: A bout de
souffle
Country: France
Genre(s): Art Film
/ Crime
Director: Jean-Luc
Godard
Cast: Jean-Paul
Belmondo / Jean Seberg / Daniel Boulanger
Plot
Pulled over by a cop
while driving to Paris in a stolen car, Michel shoots and kills the
officer. In Paris, he reunites with
Patricia, an American woman with whom he previously enjoyed a brief fling, and
tries to convince her to flee to Italy with him.
What I Liked
Paying homage to
American noir films of the 1940s, yet with a lighter, inspiring mood that any self-respecting
noir filmmakers vehemently avoid, “Breathless” still entertains more than fifty
years after its debut. Benefiting from
director Jean-Luc Godard’s insistence upon demonstrating his knowledge of filmmaking
tradition and then refuting that tradition at every opportunity, the film has a
detached coolness reminiscent of a Miles Davis album, which makes the jazzy
soundtrack all the more appropriate.
Using a variety of in-your-face techniques to completely fly in the face
of the Hollywood studio methods of motion picture storytelling, Godard , along
with his cast and crew, clearly had fun finding ways to reintroduce their
audience to watching movies all over again.
It’s a film that, while representative of its director’s passion, never
takes itself too seriously. The influence of "Breathless" on Quentin Tarrantino's writing and directorial style is evident in nearly every line of dialogue and every shot.
Lead characters
Michel and Patricia were the epitome of hipsters in the early 1960s, They are stylish, young people trying ever so hard to live care-free lives, but are truthfully far too narcissistic
to avoid getting into trouble. This of course
predicts the generational and social issues that would arise in the coming
decade, in Europe as well as the United States as youth culture would play such an increasingly vital role in the shaping the times.
Jean-Paul Belmondo seems born to play Michel, bottom-feeder criminal
bouncing from one scam to the next, a cigarette constantly dangling from
between his smirking lips in imitation of his idol, Humphrey Bogart. Meanwhile, Jean Seberg fascinates as
Patricia, the self-obsessed American beauty who enjoys Michel’s attention until
things get too serious. Michel and Patricia, never sans sunglasses, share the
screen for almost the entire last two-thirds of the film. As a couple, they make for a great
representation of youth culture in its time and also a clever portrait of the
timeless and tragic problems between the sexes.
What I Didn’t Like
Personally, I enjoyed
it, but this film does have a meager plot that progresses at a seemingly
improvised pace. Director Godard
characteristically makes frequent cuts in unconventional places. The actors improvise much of their dialogue
and their characters spend a great deal of time talking about things not obviously
connected to the film’s plot. These are
not filmmaking choices that will endear “Breathless” to those who approach it
with expectations rooted in films from the Hollywood assembly lines. Then again, those who approach it with an
open mind coupled with a love for Hollywood motion pictures, might find the
movie an enjoyably fresh, even five decades after its initial release.
Most Memorable Scene
Ironically, it’s the
scene in which the least amount of physical action or plot development takes
place. A large part of the middle
section of “Breathless” takes place in Patricia’s apartment, to which she
arrives to find the uninvited Michel in her bed. The pair, a brief sexual fling in their
fairly recent past, then set about talking to one another in a conversation
that goes absolutely nowhere. As Michel
ruminates on his half-assed philosophies about life and tries to convince
Patricia to take her clothes off, Patricia has a great time ignoring, rejecting,
and insulting him. Despite their
pseudo-romantic past, the pair clearly don’t know a thing about each other and
don’t care to do so. Each is obsessed
with his or her own image of themselves, and obviously care nothing for each
other. Yet both of them are completely
oblivious to this problem and the whole conversation just collapses into a
cold, decidedly unromantic failure.
Again, it’s Godard’s defiance of the Hollywood romance conventions that
really mark the scene as unique and (grotesquely) beautiful.
My Rating: 4 out of 5
