Film Mark Kermode has been sending video diaries from the Cannes film festival (full selection on YouTube) which have given a very good idea what it's like on the ground as a working film journalist. Here he is reviewing Jean-Luc Godard's latest Film Socialisme (amongst other things) which I've been eager to hear his impression of:
Sounds like pretty much every film Godard's made since the 60s, especially Éloge de l'amour. At some point Godard parted company with narrative and it's almost as though he can't bare to look it in the face again. When the first trailer turned up online, someone helpfully went through and translated the dialogue which based on Kermode's review isn't what the director wanted at all.
As ever the images are remarkable, especially the scenes on the ship with their primary colours and the shot of the woman on the wall being shadowed by the spinning fan. But even in translation the dialogue is impenetrable, like John Sessions improvising Godard on an old episode of Whose Line Is It Anyway?.
The final trailer eschewed dialogue in favour of simply cramming the entire film into a single minute by just speeding up the footage:
If this does get picked up against Mark's prediction I expect as ever with Godard I'm going to be simultaneously enchanted and appalled, and in this case watching as people at the Cornerhouse run to the back of the screen to complain about the lack of subtitles.
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