Les enfants jouent à la Russie (1993)

User Rating:

5.4/10   

Director:

Jean-Luc Godard

Writer:

Jean-Luc Godard (writer)

Genre:

Documentary | Drama

Plot:

A famous French filmmaker (Jean-Luc Godard) is hired by a major Hollywood producer (László Szabó) to...

Cast

László Szabó	...	Jack Valenti: The producer
Jean-Luc Godard	...	The idiot: Prince Mishkin
Bernard Eisenschitz	...	Harry Blount
André S. Labarthe	...	Alcide Jolivet
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Bénédicte Loyen

Also Known As:

The Kids Play Russian

Runtime:

60 min

Country:

France

Language:

French

Color:

Color

Company:

Vega Film

Will Godard go on? Hell, Yeah.

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

The Kids Play Russian employs the same (lack of) structure as Germany Year 90 Nine Zero and forms the last part of what I would call Godard's Elegy Trilogy (wow! that rhymes!). This time it's Russia, the head of the family, the massive Redwood tree that has fallen. Godard suffers a one-two slap with the fall of the USSR and his angst shows. The impressionist images are replaced by the mesmerizing surrealism of Dovzhenko and literature replaces the music of Germany 90. However, he does go a step further and probes what should be the future course of the country, still crying out "We will not change".

Godard calls Russia the birthplace of fiction and emphasizes that a history of Russia would most definitely reflect the history of fiction itself. And hence, fall of the USSR (rather communism) means the fall of fiction itself. He traces back the history of image projection as the first Franco-Russian alliance and calls his relation to Russia as the last one surviving. In that sense, Godard himself is the Lemmy Caution of activist cinema – once a visionary, now undone. He employs the fictional figures of Anna Karenina and Prince Andrei to represent Russia and its plight hereafter. He imagines what they would be doing if they were alive during the collapse of their motherland. But again like all three films of the series, the film is one that is built on hope and promises.

The final image of the film captures a borderline-wild Godard continuing to work in his recording room, lit partially by the harsh light. A sexagenarian with fractured relationships, doomed ideologies and whose only redemption is in Cinema, pushing forward with more vigor than ever – only a few images can be more moving than this. More than "The show must go on" attitude, what shows here is "And miles to go before I sleep" mentality that has kept Godard afloat amidst his larger-than-life troubles in both his personal and professional life. The Idiot will go on. So will Cinema.