Nouvelle Vague

Nouvelle Vague (Jean-Luc Godard, 1990)

Of Jean-Luc Godard’s post masterpiece era, his films made after 1968 the year he discovered Maoism and let the traditional narratives of Cinema away to make a more instinctive form of films that are quite unique and complex but also not accessible for a wider public, Nouvelle Vague stands as a beautiful strange film that flirts with Science-Fiction, in a plot line manner, and the Hitchcock thriller. A film starring no other than Alain Delon that plays twin brothers who eventually are complete opposites of each other and that create a mystery on the meaning of it all.

As much as Jean-Luc Godard is respected and admired for his earlier work, there are not that many film enthusiasts that cherish and love his later work. Mostly, because it is very dense and harder to get than his most traditional film narratives. He tried to make his own language and narrative that would transcends the already chewed same formula that any commercial film would offer us. Godard in this way creates his own references and pave his own way. This is a very difficult task to do when the public might seem not ready to understand a movie that displays beautiful sceneries of the Léman Lake but that also contains dialogues that are only constituted of citations of books, novels, and poems.

Just as the man is, the film is bold, audacious, and ahead of its time. On the level of appreciation it’s far from being as great as Breathless or Pierrot le fou. It is the kind of film that cinephiles will study to get the meanings and complexity of its creator. However, it did not clenched my thirst as a film and a movie.

This is the first time that this film is included on the 1000 Greatest films of all time (by TSPDT) list and I’m wondering who included it on its list and why this film?  Not that it is particularly bad or off the wall but it is quite unknown except for the name of its director. To be honest, it would not stand on my personal 1000 Greatest films list. But would be a not so painful film for anyone who wants to complete its viewing of all of Jean-Luc Godard’s work.