Je vous salue, Sarajevo (1993) (V)

Director:

Jean-Luc Godard

Writer:

Jean-Luc Godard (writer)

Release Date:

2006 (France)

Genre:

Short

Cast

Jean-Luc Godard

...

Narrator

Runtime:

2 min

Country:

France

Language:

French

Color:

Color

Company:

Périphéria

the right frame

Godard is a curious and highly talented filmmaker, yet uneasy to get, arrogant and autistic in so many times. This ruins much of what he makes, but we're still left with some pearls.

This is one of them. A simple exercise of visual manipulation, minimal in its resources and time extension but which becomes magnificent in its visual power. This short is 2 minutes of multiple framings of one single photography. Every framing will give us a particular reality within, and make us comprehend different worlds within the world which, as the short goes along, we understand to be a single image. These two minutes in Godard are more analytic and meaningful than many of Wenders films which address directly what it means to look for the hidden visual meanings of images. Why couldn't he be so clear headed in the 20 years preceding this film?

Here, as in a few other Godard films, i was so impressed with how he manipulated me, that i forgave his usually speech, one of underneath political stubbornness and egotism, disguised as a pure humanitarian. I do not reject his intentions, only his attitude.

Also, a question arises here, and in the work of Godard throughout the 90'. More than testing the limits of cinema, here he questions its own definitions. I believe (based on his "history of cinema" episodes) that he pushes his own definitions of cinema to the fields of painting. Yet, i think he becomes more of an image maker and manipulator. Painting, in its cinematic sense, has two ways to be understood: one is with lighting/color/composition, the other is as visual communication/manipulation. Welles/Toland, Conrad Hall, Gordon Willis. Those were painters. Here Godard attempts at manipulating, and wanders in not so explored fields of cinematic narrative.

My opinion: 4/5 watch this.

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