A.K.A.: Pierrot Le Fou
Country: France
Genre(s): Adventure
/ Art Film / Comedy
Director: Jean-Luc
Godard
Cast: Jean-Paul
Belmondo / Anna Karina / Graziella Galvani
Plot
Reunited lovers
Ferdinand and Marianne go on the run from a gang of gun smugglers, travelling
through France in search of freedom and romance.
What I Liked
Self-aware to the
point of absurdity, “Pierrot Goes Wild” whips together the action, romance,
musical, and comedy genres into such a chaotic and colorful mess that one can’t
be sure if director Jean-Luc Godard means the film as a tribute to or a criticism
of those genres. Certainly, the
intention is at least in part to truthfully represent that life itself is very
rarely one genre, but is itself a chaotic and colorful mess. Still, life never gets as unruly as “Pierrot
Goes Wild,” and thus Godard might be parodying life itself.
Shot without a script,
the story has enough wild moments and unexpected turns to keep viewer interest,
but ironically the slower part of the plot toward the middle is the most
thought-provoking. Believing themselves
safe from the gangsters who pursue them, Ferdinand and Marianne settle into an
anonymous life of poverty by the sea-side, living off the land, talking poetry,
and dancing through the woods. Totally
secluded from the outside world, they become an allegory for the battle of the
sexes, a European Adam and Eve in a Mediterranean Eden. Marianne, Godard’s symbol of womankind, longs
for experience, fun, and living in the moment.
Ferdinand, as the man, is a frightened intellectual who lives inside his
mind, consumed by needing to understand why things are and what things are to
come. At the film’s start, the pair are
wild lovers, uncontrollably attracted to one another and devoted to each other
by their united rejection of the world around them. Left alone, they find themselves unable to
understand one another’s perspectives and desires, resulting in distrust and
boredom, if not really loss of love. These
scenes may not be form a true depiction of the age-old problems between men and
women, but nonetheless raise some intriguing questions.
What I Didn’t Like
Before the couple
goes on the run, the domestic subject matter of this film is so mundane that
after the first fifteen or twenty minutes or so, I had to take a nap. Ultimately, that boredom is revealed to be
the reason why Ferdinand abandons his wife and children to go on the run with
Marianne, at which point the action picks up; but getting to that point is
mind-numbing.
As is the case with a
lot of art-house flicks, the filmmakers are trying to break down the medium and
also present new methods for making motion pictures. While the quest is admirable and the result
not altogether unsuccessful, one gets the feeling that this could have been an
altogether better chase movie had the director, cast, and crew take a more
straight-forward approach. That
statement would probably make someone like Godard (and his fans) want to
puke. I’m simply saying it’s a good
concept (not altogether different from Tarrantino’s plot to “True Romance”); I probably
would have enjoyed it more with less of the self-indulgent, artsy stuff.
Most Memorable Scene
*spoiler alert*
As if scoffing at
those who try to apply too much meaning to the film, Godard ends everything
with a bizarre and stupid suicide by Ferdinand, who changes his mind only too
late to stop his own death. Hilariously
absurd, the scene forces the viewer to reevaluate every scene that came before,
casting everything in a less serious light.
My Rating: 2.5 out of 5
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