Weekend

Weekend
by Jean-Luc Godard

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DVD Cover Information

Actor: Jean Yanne, Jean-Pierre Kalfon, Jean-Pierre L?aud, Mireille Darc, Val?rie Lagrange
Director: Jean-Luc Godard
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Subtitled); French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.66:1
Running Time: 105 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-08-23
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: New Yorker Video

Movie Reviews of Weekend

Movie Review: one of the -very few- Godard's I like
Summary: 4 Stars

WEEK-END

Jean-Luc Godard's WEEK-END is certainly beyond the usual egocentrism of Nouvelle Vague (New Wave) movies. In other terms, while the formers (including his BREATHLESS) deal with personal characteristic themes, WEEK-END is dominated by philosophical, cultural, social, and geopolitical themes. It's a franc satire of the Parisian upper-class but more importantly it's a dark view of the modern civilization's self decay, materialism, apathy, terrorism, and violence. And though the movie has the protagonists -like most nouvelle vague- as "anti-heroes", it's more adequately classified as a post-modern work, approaching very similar (if not the same) territories explored mainly by Bergman (movies like Shame, Passion of Anna) and to a lesser width in Antonioni's trilogy in that same era (mid-late 60's). While Bergman approached these themes in a sinister, philosophical (i.e. Bergmanesque) manner, Godard used his usual raw humor adding some surrealistic escapades in a direct tribute to Bunuel (even a section of the movie is titled EXTERMINATING ANGELS).
Symbolism is also a crucial element in this work: Cars -a classical Godard fetish- are all over the place, in all possible states (turned upside down, exploded, dysfunctional...) as a metaphor for "modernism", the domination of the three main French national colors (blue/red/white) is obvious...etc

Technically speaking, on a first glimpse, Jean-Luc Godard's WEEKEND may seem like a regular Film Noir centered on an upper-class Parisian couple. The initial scenes have a dark-lighting quality and a remarkable over-use (on purpose) of a very Hollywoodish , overzealous, melodramatic musical score.
One of my favorite scenes in this movie (and even in all of Godard's) is the traffic scene that takes place after fifteen minutes of the start and lasts for good ten minutes. Godard staged the complex scene beautifully; his camera tracks the main car, spans in and out smartly.
Godard's love for experimentation is hard to miss here: characters unrelated to the main narration emerge from different times (the French revolution) break the fourth wall by talking to the camera directly. A pianist actually playing live -non dubbed- Mozart in a farm. The director interrupts the narration very frequently by projecting titles that play on words and with multi-layered symbolism, he wanted to make it clear that it's only a movie. I personally enjoyed those "word plays" initially but half-way through the movie they exceeded my patience, but again maybe it's because I'm aware that I'm dealing with a Godard and usually I'm very impatient when watching his works.

Surprisingly, the US DVD edition (NEW YORKER VIDEO) isn't bad at all, with a very useful audio commentary by critic David Sterritt, an interview with the movie cinematographer Raoul Coutard, and input from director Mike Figgis.

I think WEEK-END is one of the director's best. I enjoyed it more than his other highly- acclaimed works (Alphaville, Contempt, Tout Va Bien, Breathless....), and I recommend it even to whoever is -like me- not a fan of Godard at all.

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Summary of Weekend

Jean-Luc Godard and Luis Bu?uel enjoyed an ardent misanthropic duel in the '60s and '70s, but who won is anyone's call. Godard's Weekend lays down the trump in a harrowing and darkly funny allegory in which social mores fray along political lines. Played out in a metafilm in which characters question their own reality, a morally bankrupt Parisian couple tries to leave the city on a much-loathed country holiday with the wife's parents. Along the way, endless traffic jams, sudden violence, and vistas of gory car crashes underscore their corrupted values. Their lethal encounter with the in-laws and kidnap by an anarchic band of radical cannibals finds the couple--and presumably "decent" society with them--reverting to a nasty primitivism. The idea is of course that the bored, apathetic heart of the bourgeoisie is never far from acting out its most homicidal fantasies. --Alan E. Rapp

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