Notre musique (2004)

The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.

One of those movie experiences that is so good it makes you realize you've been grading everything else on a curve.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

I number the reviews of my Godard quest so as to provide a sense of continuity and progression, what came before and after. I will likely rest here and leave Film Socialisme for some other time. It's obvious from these last few films that he has said his piece, some ten years before.Nonetheless, in his mode as essayist of cinema he is the most rewarding Godard. He goes where Chris Marker went, but is more lyrical, hoping to evoke what he yearns to transcend. Mortality, love, injustice, he ruminates on these as he did before. He divides his disseminations as three kingdoms.Among the footage of war and atrocity that make up Hell I spotted Eisenstein, from the film he left unfinished in Mexico for Paramount. Which makes me ask what else is staged and illusionary in this, though in the grand scheme it doesn't matter and that is perhaps the point. Filmed from life or for the cinema, these images elicit the same outrage. Our imagination of violence blends well with the reality of it. This segment also shows that Godard is incomparable as editor. Apart from political signifiers, these images I enjoy for the contours of their gratuitous shape, for how they swirl in and out of each other.Purgatory shows us souls in transit, trapped in the dilemmas of existence we know all too well. Aching for meaning or lamenting the absence of it, we see here a tapestry of internal anxiety. Images of roads elucidate our passing through the world, mundane but quietly magical if seen with the right eyes. In this segment he refurbishes an insight from the Histoire(s) project. How we are drawn to the light of the imaginary, in order to cast it in the dark of reality that surrounds us. He also tells us what Kazantzakis had said fifty years ago, that we are truly free of our bonds when we neither hope nor fear. That life is, while death isn't. But he also crams this part with more political discourse, trite by now.This is all well, some of it stale, some of it exceptional. But how to portray Heaven, what does Godard envision the other world to be? This is what intrigued me as I was watching the film.Nature, this is where Godard goes to reflect again, as he did before. Not so curiously, in his Heaven are only young people, one of them reading a book, others playing in the shade. Tres banal or simply tres Godard? The image that closes this is rather poignant though. It's a beautiful, clear day, and the woman is looking out at sea. She can see far but not from where she came.

I am not sure if this amazing film has only just got into the Art Cinema Circuit here. Seeing it some 36hrs after the London Bombings was to experience something quite extraordinary and to confirm JLG as a filmmaker of unique relevance. If you haven't seen it-Get out there NOW.You will be probably appreciate it more if you haven't read any other reviews!JLG chooses a rather complex framework for this study of violence and the Human Condition.Indeed his own appearance within the film as JLG-auteur,could distract from the hugely powerful simplicity of any one of several interlocking "stories",in the end however my companion and I felt that this was the pinnacle of our 25years of film-going.Cheers and be excellent to .......!

A huge portion of the world's population consider Americans lazy, uninformed (because they are lazy), short-sighted (because they are uninformed), narcissistic (because they are short-sighted)."Can 30 million Frenchmen be wrong?" "Probably," we would say (that the French are worthy of scorn being an article of faith among a huge portion of our population)."Well, what about 3 billion non-Frenchmen?"Anyone who makes a filmlike this....uncompromisingly serious (this is a huge slap in the face to the notion that movies are about entertainment) political (read "leftist"), fiercely anti-American will be dismissed as difficult, obtuse, elitist. This is an anti-War movie and not one of those treacly "King of Hearts" anti-war movie that lets the audience off the hook by allowing them to congratulate themselves for their sympathy for the director's view. That is much too easy for someone like Godard who likes to think that mankind's endless history of "cutting off each other's heads" is unspeakably horrible, somehow something to be taken seriously.Maybe it's OK for someone to ask the audience to do a little work when engaging a work of art.This is a sublime experience. The look of the film is endlessly breathtaking....how does he get that look???? (i've never seen anyone else who could do this. And the musique, the cutting in and out of these short searing bursts of symphonic music....This pass weekend i saw 2 movies on DVD - Notre Musique and Predator. Yes, i relished the chance to see an Arnold classic and yes, i felt reluctant to have to put up with Godard's cranky obtuseness. After watching Schwartzeneger (??) I felt like i'd just wasted 2 hours of my life that i would never get back. After watching JLG, I felt like my view of the world had been permanently changed.The message of this film is that it might soon be too late. For anyone not interested in buying into such things, there is always Predator 2.

It is sometimes hard for creative and well meaning filmmakers to accept the fact that their political and philosophical understanding of the world might not be as rounded as their movie making skills. Godard shows in this excruciating film that he clearly falls into this category of filmmakers. 'Notre Musique' is well intentioned, for sure. Godard seeks to obfuscate the lines between reality and drama, the sensible and the absurd (heaven guarded by US marines). In doing so, however, the film becomes Godard's 'international politics explained' more than an engaging piece of cinema. Being a visual medium as it is, cinema needs to add layers of subtlety to what's seen (so that we look beyond that which is seen), in order to be not only an effective messenger but also an exercise in self-exploration. 'Notre Musique' is a blaring loudspeaker with Godard in control of the microphone.