'Week End' is a poor attempt to mix highbrow political attacks with a lowbrow sensibility from one of cinema's great artists. Here we have Jean-Luc Godard at both his most political, and his most experimental, throwing together ideas about Marxism, cannibalism and consumerism, and not caring one little bit whether or not the audience understands his angle of attack, or even his reason for it. Beginning the film with juvenile captions like "a film adrift in the cosmos" and "a film found on a dump", 'Week End' desperately tries to set up a nonchalant attitude to politics, society and the role of the filmmaker, but instead, simply smacks of pretension.
Godard's early movies demonstrated both a love and understanding for the medium for which he both embraced and reinvented, at the same time producing a number of classic films. However, sometime during the mid-sixties Godard became less interested in linear storytelling, and more concerned with empty provocation, which is illustrated clearly in 'Week End'. The disjointed, often rambling 'plot' follows a young Parisian couple, Roland and Corrine. Both at the height of the swinging-sixties revolution -- they openly have affairs, and delight in telling each other about their seedy escapades in sordid detail. When sex isn't motivating them, money is, or at least the prospect of money. So much so, when the chance arrives to visit Corrine's dying father, they plot to finish the old man off, and then reap the benefits of the inheritance. An odious act you might say, but up until this point the film has been quite interesting, almost enjoyable, showing us a very witty deconstruction of our preconceptions of the modern Parisian couple. But as the pair hit the road, Godard takes his message and proceeds to whack the viewer square in the face with it.
Beginning with the in/famous ten-minute tracking shot (following Roland and Corrine as the try desperately to negotiate a traffic jam on a county road), their journey takes them on an episodic odyssey that is supposed to represent a symbolic cleansing for the characters. As the film progresses they witness bizarre fairytale people who preach liberalistic nonsense, all manner of unexplained car crashes, raving lunatics and a band of terrorists. All this is supposed to strip away Roland and Corrine's bourgeois façade, making them pure human beings again. The message is blunt, unsubtle and heavy-handed, without the mindless consumerism of modern society, man and woman can function purely, as they where meant to. But despite Godard's self-confidence, it is unclear from the film where his own political allegiance lies. It would seem he feels strongly in favour of anti-commercialism/anti-consumerism, but his argument is fatuous -- and lacking sufficient and believable ammunition to back it up -- his only alternative to everyday modern life would seem to be joining a band of cannibalistic terrorists. Or maybe this was a metaphor for society's often-violent ways.
On a plus side, 'Week End' sees Godard at his most primitive, both stylistically and visually. He composes each frame with the brightest of colours, has his actors speaking monologues directly to camera, and then the aforementioned, long, unbroken tracking shots. Of course despite having an interesting quality, these stylistic flairs mean absolutely nothing. It's merely Godard's attempt to make the audience pay attention to what the characters are saying -- but since they are all speaking pure drivel it would seem to have been a bad move. By the time the film reaches its inevitable, ambiguous climax, the whole event becomes all the more tiresome. As Godard runs out of things to say (which is long after the film ceased to make sense of its ideas), he begins building up images of collective degradation and supposed black-comedy satire, neither of which work successfully... and I haven't even mentioned the acting yet.
The only decent performance you'll find that is even remotely worth watching (i.e. not entirely detestable a characterisation), is Jean-Pierre Léaud's double cameo as 'saint-just'/'singing man in phone box'. He is an extremely likable actor, familiar to audiences as the young Truffaut-alike in 'The 400 Blows'. Unlike the other cast members (with the exception of Mireille Darc as Corrine), he is clearly in sync with Godard's particular filmmaking style, and for a brief moment, makes the film almost enjoyable. I feel bad criticising Godard like this, he is a rare filmmaker, and one who has never been afraid to speak his ideas courageously -- demonstrated by the list of relevant issues here -- but they are just not communicated well enough. It's a great shame then that Godard had to make his film so heavy-handed in its ideals, and so excruciatingly slow in pace that it fails to work on any real, important level. A huge disappointment 2/5
