Le redoutable France, Myanmar 2017 – 107min.
Movie Rating
Le redoutable
Paris, 1967. Jean-Luc Godard, the most prominent filmmaker of his generation, is fascinated and carried away by the winds of revolution blowing through France. He has just filmed La chinoise, a movie about Mao Zedong and communism. He meets Anne Wiazemsky, 20 years his junior, and they become a couple. But La Chinoise is badly received by critics, and while the May 68 revolutions is upsetting his country, Godard goes through a deep crisis.
Winner of an Oscar for best director and a phenomenal success with The Artist in 2011, Michel Hazanavicius suffered a severe failure with 2014’s The Search. Following that with a false biopic about Jean-Luc Godard is anything but an easy bet, and that's certainly why it's so great. Less interested in the idea of recounting the life of the great filmmaker than in filming his abnormal character with humor, lightness and derision, he composes an offbeat, atmospheric comedy. Using Godard's weapons (playing with colors, framing, voice-over, with a lot of nods to his films), Hazanavicius paints a double portrait: of the director of Contempt and Pierrot le fou; and of May 68, a revolutionary time. The parallel between the two is touching, disconcerting and tragic. Refusing to make a hagiography, he makes Godard an absurd character, alternately pathetic and hilarious, but desperately touching.
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