When he is pulled over for speeding, small time car thief Michel Poiccard shoots and kills a motorcycle police officer. Abandoning his stolen car and fleeing across the countryside he arrives back home in Paris penniless and needing somewhere to lie low. He turns to his American girlfriend Patricia for help and she takes him in. The pair spend the next few days making love, talking and stealing cars to get enough money to get to Italy; however as the police close in on Michel he gets increasingly desperate and fed up.
Having gone to the cinema earlier and suffered the American version of Taxi, I decided to try and purge the badness from my system by watching a classic or two over the next few days one of these classics was this film, which I do believe everyone who loves the cinema should try and see this at least once if only to be able to understand the wider origins and influences on the people who are currently influencing the next generation. Regardless of why you watch this, it is likely that modern audiences will not be won over by it as much as they really should be certainly people I have talked to about the film seem to wonder what all the fuss is about (one even going so far as to lament the absence of Richard Gere!). I was of course impressed by the use of the much name-dropped technique of jump-cuts but seeing them now it is easy to forget that this was new then. Away from its place in the formation of modern cinema and its influence on many modern directors, this is a great film in its own right even if the rather laid back (typically French?) telling may annoy some audiences.
For me the film relies on dialogue and characters and both of these are well delivered. The film seems to have a lot of talking between the two lead characters but this work as long as you can buy into the very cool and laid back philosophising about love, literature and life. I think that in the context of Paris as it is presented here that it works very well but then I had also been in stitches over the funny short film 'J'Aime John Wayne' which spoofs the 'Gallic cool' portrayed in this film. The lead characters work well because of the dialogue but they are also very well presented by the two leads. If someone played like Belmondo today I would be the first to deride him but here he is setting the reasons why nobody can do it again by becoming an iconic figure in modern cinema. He is not so much carefree and just very ambivalent about everything America has its Rebels Without A Cause but to me Belmondo was very much a French version of a cultural rebel.
Seberg is very good and makes her dialogue feel natural and convincing even though it could have been pretentious and annoying. Together they have not only chemistry but also a confidence within their own characters. Of course the direction still feels fresh today freely moving around city streets and country roads but also coming in for close ups on the actors faces. Godard continues the feel of his short films and it much better than if it had been constrained by sets on soundstages.
Overall this is a great film that you should see if only so that you can say you have seen it. It may be hard to see what all the fuss is about now, because we are looking back on technical things that are now the norm, but the film is still strong on the 'normal' basis of story, directing, acting etc. The film is full of iconic images as well as a very French sense of detached cool that is very much of its time but it is also an interesting character piece with good dialogue and good performances from Seberg and Belmondo, who can't have been aware of what they were taking part in.
