104 in 2009 Week 20: Pierrot Le Fou

Only one this week, but I'm still ahead of the game overall. Also, this week marks a milestone for me - Pierrot Le Fou was the 1800th movie that I've seen. Or at least, the 1800th movie entered into my spreadsheet, which means very nearly the same thing. And fortunately, it turned out to be a pretty good movie on top of that. Huzzahs all around.

Pierrot Le Fou
Jean-Luc Godard, 1965

Ferdinand (Jean Paul Belmondo), unhappily married to a rich Italian woman, runs away one night with Marianne (Anna Karina), the babysitter, who is also an old flame of his. They travel across the French countryside, dreaming of making it to Italy and trying to figure out if they’re really in love, all the while trying to elude a troupe of gun runners who want to reclaim a suitcase full of money that Marianne stole from them.

Pierrot Le Fou reunites Godard with two of the three stars from A Woman is a Woman, but it can’t quite match the sheer effervescence of that film. I suppose it really isn’t meant to, because despite sharing the same exhilaratingly unencumbered structure, occasional musical number, and periods of absurdism, Pierrot is also filled to the brim with images of death and bouts of despair. It’s arguably a much richer work, with themes that center around the clash between intellect and emotion, although critical consensus holds that it’s really just a movie about itself. I can’t really get behind that consensus, myself, as the dichotomy between Ferdinand’s intellect and Marianne’s chaotic emotional life is too stark not to serve a deliberate purpose. Despite this, I do still rate it a bit below A Woman is a Woman, because it just isn't quite as fun.

I have to wonder if David Lynch was a fan of this movie. The dialogue, which frequently built tension through repetitive banality, was very reminiscent of his works, as was the parade of grotesquerie in the ancillary characters, which particularly called to mind Wild at Heart or the first half of Mulholland Drive. On the other hand, at no point has Lynch ever embraced the freewheeling lightness of Godard, as even an improvisational work like Inland Empire has an overwhelming feeling of weight and structure.

As before, Belmondo and Karina are fantastic. They have an instant chemistry that does wonders for keeping the movie grounded when it threatens to fall apart. In particular, they’re both well suited for Godard’s tendency to break the fourth wall – Belmondo’s casual, almost bored delivery lends emotional weight to the times when he speaks to the audience, and once glance into the camera from Anna Karina could render paragraphs of dialogue redundant. As in A Woman is a Woman, Karina’s character is a bit too crazy to really be sympathetic, and this time there’s an added level of almost sociopathic manipulation. Free-spirit types are often difficult to pull off in movies for this very reason – it’s difficult to really convey the sense of joy and life that they exude, so you wind up wondering why the protagonist would put up with all of the crap that someone like Marianne throws his way. With Anna Karina playing the role, though, all it takes is one look into her eyes and it all makes sense. Ahem. I’ll cut myself off here, to avoid turning this review into one big gushing love letter to Ms. Karina, but the point I’m trying to make is that, while Pierrot Le Fou is very typically Godard, and definitely representative of his vision, it also belongs just as much to the actors, without whom it could never have succeeded.

8.5/10

Progress: 43 (Par +3)