Le Petit Soldat
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DVD Cover Information Actor: Anna Karina, Henri-Jacques Huet, Lszl Szab, Michel Subor, Paul Beauvais Director: Jean-Luc Godard Brand: Genius Writer: Jean-Luc Godard DVD: Region Code 0 Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo Format: Black & White, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled Picture Format: 1.33:1 Running Time: 88 minutes DVD Release Date: 2001-12-11 Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated) Studio: Fox Lorber |
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Movie Reviews of Le Petit Soldat
Movie Review: Barely Effective Noir
Summary: 3 Stars
Jean-Luc Godard should be applauded for trying to pull off films such as 'Le Petit Soldat', for in such films he really goes his own way in using film as an artistic medium. His storytelling here is very French 'Noir', with some 'chilling' night street shots and tenuous close-ups of complex visages. Also Michel Subor does a fine job in speaking very specifically about his impressionistic/esoteric thoughts on life, death, and love. All of these aspects are to be appreciated in a French film, for very few filmmakers outside of France have a good handle on the existentialist/'stark' artistic aspects of filmmaking. What bogs this particular classic down is the first half hour or so with shot after shot of people getting into and out of cars and pulling up/whizzing off down the road. No amount of imagination can give this protracted pattern artistic value. It's just plain boring- and I have a pretty tolerant attention span. But what does all this do to move the story forward? Rien. The other problems with this film are the plot and realism. Firstly the plot- what could have been a gripping story weaved around this striking subject matter of allegiances and covert activity (torture, double agenting, etc.) during the French-Algerian War, is very watered down here and too simplistic. It rarely gets out of Marseillaise (or wherever 'Le Petit Soldat' purports to take place), and we see very little, if nothing of the Arabs, Algeria, or places or characters outside of a small, insular spy-vs-spy world. That would be OK if the story was carried along realistically, but it is not, which brings me to point number 2. The torture scenes are just not realistic in the sense of being convincing. If this is torture, then the torturers must have taken their lessons from a day care center, because they do very little to the main character to convince us he is actually in a great deal of pain. He comes out of his torture "with a little burn" on his wrist, and does not seem to be psychologically effected at all. For comparison, read Frederick Forysth's "The Day of the Jackal" for what was really going on with these interrogations. I am not saying we need to see brutal torture to make this film work, just better acting in the aftermath perhaps.
Overall, the film is watchabale, but barely. What halfway redeems it is some of Subor's expostulations on love, death, beauty, and the oblique.
This film is shot in black and white and is spoken in French with English subtiltes. The DVD is of good pictorial quality and comes with a few nice extras- which help.