Weekend (1968)

Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Meh. Pretentious as hell. Only interesting bit for me was the drummer's recitation, which was taken from Maldoror. Pathetic attempts to shock with bits taken from Bataille's Story of the Eye. As for the "longest traveling shot in the history of the cinema" and its "bravura technical mastery", as the shot moves along the various cars, you can see the reflection of the film crew moving along on the dolly, in the windows of various cars. I'm sure someone will say Godard did this on purpose. Yeah, sure.

A supposedly idyllic week-end trip to the countryside turns into a never-ending nightmare of traffic jams, revolution, cannibalism and murder as French bourgeois society starts to collapse under the weight of its own consumer preoccupations.Following World War II, the French grew increasingly supportive of communism. Maybe not as a whole, but the intellectuals (such as Sartre) embraced it, and it seems a natural reaction following the Nazi occupation of the 1940s. Rejecting the extreme right does tend to push ideology to the left.Here we have a surreal satire on the class struggle in France in the 1960s. One of the most radical countries during one of the most radical decades. Many have compared this to Luis Bunuel's "Discreet Charm" and with good reason. They can both be seen as the artistic expression of the disdain for the upper class. I dare say this is the better film, even if probably the lesser-known.

Despite having a cleverly conceived and infamous 8 minute continuous take of the traffic jam from hell, I simply find this film nasty.There is no humour to lift the macabre hell and whilst it might have been dreamt up in a hallucinogenic haze, when this was fashionable, this doesn't relate to me. I get the slant on the misplaced morals in a modern society (a woman escaping from a burning car is only concerned for her designer handbag, not her passengers' well-being). It then just gets weirder and weirder, interspersed by shrill lunacy.As you can guess, I've never got into J L Godard. I love with passion almost all French, Italian and other world cinema, with Felinni and Bergman, both considered a bit balmy and self-centred, as favourites.It was only through esteemed Film Guides and other reviews that praised this film to the heights that I ever considered buying it. It's relative rarity and controversy are the only reasons to hang onto it.

Warning: animal abuse, actual animal killed. Godard slaughters a pig on camera. Godard slaughters a duck on camera. If this sort of French snuff gets you hot & horny, then by all means enjoy the flick. However, if you give half a damn about animals, you might want to avoid this film. It's your choice, but whatever you do, don't be one of those hypocrites who says, "Oh I love animals, but it's totally cool if we abuse them in horrific ways for the sake of entertainment." If you're the latter, please stick your head in a toilet and flush.Other directors who kill animals because they're too cheap to use special effects or props: Tarkovsky, Bergman, Francis Ford Coppola, Sergio Leone, Ki-duk Kim... just check out the IMDb keyword actual-animal-killed for a list of films to either avoid or grease up your pole to, depending on what floats your boat.