Pierrot le Fou (Jean-Luc Godard, 1965)

This film is the Godard I know and love! Self-reflexive, amusing and just plain absurd. And by absurd, I mean it was just so weird and out of the ordinary that it was ridiculous. Pierrot le Fou about a man named Ferdinand (Jean-Paul Belmondo) who leaves his wife and children for his ex-girlfriend Marianne (Anna Karina) and then joins her on a crime spree, humorously attacking people before stealing their cars. They go to the French Riviera and we discover Marianne is wanted for murder and is being chased by Algerian gangsters. When the gangsters attack, Ferdinand and Marianne become separated. We then see them reunite and Marianne runs away with her real boyfriend (who she said was her brother) and Ferdinand shoots Marianne and her boyfriend, then paints his face blue and decides to blow himself up by tying dynamite around his head. Although he regrets his decision at the last minute, he fails to extinguish the fuse and is blown up. (We then hear their voice-overs as we see the ocean and the film ends). The whole film is somewhat light-hearted yet there is an interesting tension between seriousness which Godard explores.

In the early scenes of the film when Ferdinand is attending a high-brow party with his wife, Godard uses the same techniques as in Le Mepris using red, yellow, blue, white and green filters to once again draw our attention to the technical aspects of the film. I think it is Godard’s way of alluding to the boring and shallowness of the party, that he distracts us with the colours, as if to warn us not to get absorbed into the people of the party (as Ferdinand clearly tries to do) and the film itself. Some of the interesting quotes in the film include, “film is like a battleground”; also when Marianne talks about photographs, she says “life is so different from books”, also later (I think it is Ferdinand) says “literature before music”. When they were staging their car accident, I’m pretty sure it was Marianne who says, “This is real. It’s not cinema” − now there’s so much you can draw from that one statement. Apparently, a lot of Pierrot le Fou was improvised but I think that that line wasn’t − it sounds like something Godard would say! It is clear to see how self-reflexive the film is with the actors addressing the camera a few times throughout the movie (one of my favourite Godard techniques), both the two main protagonists, as well as some random people in the café they visit. In one instance, Marianne who asks Ferdinand, “Who you talking to?”, to which he replies, “the audience”. Classic Godard. Throughout the movie, the characters often seem to speak their thoughts through voice-overs, so it’s like their minds are having a conversation. Also, I like the long takes and there are quite a few, such as when we see Marianne in the car, and when the couple are walking off in the distance after staging their car accident.

This seems to be one of Godard’s more political films: it makes reference to the Vietnam War when Marianne hears them talking about the Viet Cong on the radio and we see Marianne’s stash of guns in her house. Also, to put the film in its context, they mention the moon landing and an American named White (Edward Higgins White − the first American to spacewalk, in 1965). Other references Godard makes are to Laurel and Hardy, and I’m pretty sure that at one point, we see Picasso’s famous painting of a young boy. So Godard is obviously very aware of his surrounding and current events in the world. He knows about history but also is making history and is very in tune with significant events in world history occurring around the time of the film.

On the more humorous, bizarre side of Pierrot le Fou, there is no real attention or reaction on the part of the characters to the dead body on Marianne’s bed, which just stunned me, but at the same time amused me. Thus, it’s an example of just how are we supposed to treat this serious? The topic of death and a dead body − can we laugh? Another comic element was this random insertion of musical numbers twice in the film. First we heard Marianne sing about her love for Ferdinand (and it’s not like she’s the most talented singer) but it’s almost like a parody of love songs to me. Then later on, she sings about the small fate line on her hand, again referring to that common theme of death explored in Godard’s films.

(Speaking of themes, the character of Ferdinand is a writer and it’s no surprise we see him reading − another popular theme in Godard’s films). Also, the music has an interesting use in the film, as it swells but then suddenly stops and really draws out attention to the use of a soundtrack (or lack of).

I’m glad that I can dedicate a part of this to Godard’s use of humour, as it pervades the film in very unexpected yet welcome ways. For instance, when I first saw Anna Karina fighting some gas station attendants, it was very entertaining and just absurd to the extreme. I also literally laughed out loud at Belmondo and Karina’s re-enactment of the Vietnam War (throughout the film they go around telling stories to people in cafés, etc)  − Karina pretending to be Vietnamese was highly amusing. Also comical was the man at the end, a very small man who was talking on this huge mobile phone, as well as when Ferdinand is eating what looks like a giant slice of cheese in front of a French flag (representations much?) with a princess of some sort. It was just the visual humour that sort of echoed the mentality of the whole film − where something is just not right but is funny. Something I’m not sure about is why both Ferdinand and Marianne go by other names, Paul (Pierrot) and Virginie − it must be a reference to something I’m sure but Ferdinand wasn’t happy being called Pierrot. I have to admit that I liked Belmondo’s performance much more in this film and I’m curious as to whether he did his own stunts (as in the jumping off trees, out of the way of a train, and the torture scene in the bath). I admire his acting much more now and as for Karina, well I have always enjoyed her work − although I can’t get over that Vietnamese impression.

4/5