Tout va Bien (Everything’s alright) (Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin, 1972)

A great film that has really established Jean-Luc Godard as one of my favourite filmmakers. Something that featured prominently in this film was the amazing camerawork. I’m always intrigued by unique and original camera movement and angles, which this film had plenty of − it shows an “out of the box” way of thinking from Godard. Instances of this were in the supermarket scene, when the camera was tracking from left to right as the journalist character played by Jane Fonda walked along the cash registers and at the beginning in the factory, we see a cutaway of all the rooms, as if we were watching the separate areas of a doll house (remind me of Jacques Tati’s Playtime − another film I admire for it’s ingenuity). In addition, there were monologues by the main characters as if they were being interviewed by the camera and when certain people spoke they may not have even been in the frame, or hidden behind someone else, such as the times when the characters on the screen were almost frozen looking at the speaker who was off camera. Although the longer the takes were, the sort of more frustrating it became at times but overall I like this approach and think it very effective and memorable. The film dealt with a variety of topics, from the strike at the sausage factory, to tension in the marriage between the journalist and her filmmaker husband, as well as their respective professions. So with an unforgettable first impression, Tout va Bien becomes one of my favourite films of all times for its cleverness, simplicity and entertainment value.

I also really liked the special features on the DVD too, including interviews with directors, as well as Letter to Jane (1972) Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin’s 52-minute postscript to Tout va bien, 1972 video interview excerpt with Jean-Luc Godard, new video interview with Jean-Pierre Gorin, and a 40-page booklet with essays by film critics J. Hoberman and Kent Jones, and Godard biographer Colin MacCabe, plus excerpts from a 1972 interview with Gorin and Godard.

4.5/5