Review: ‘Film Socialisme’
The notion that the summer movie season is only a time for brainless action films has already been disproved this year by "The Tree of Life," as nervy a movie starring someone of Brad Pitt's stature as you're ever going to see. But when it comes to challenging, experimental films, even Terrence Malick's movie has nothing on "Film Socialisme," the latest from director Jean-Luc Godard. At least "The Tree of Life" had dialogue you could follow: Godard's movie has almost no narrative, and even then if you don't speak French (and German and Russian), the subtitles don't do much to help you out.
Like Godard's last film, "Notre Musique," "Film Socialisme" is more of a cinematic essay than any sort of conventional story, divided into three sections that don't immediately seem connected. In the first part, we observe different individuals on a large cruise ship somewhere in the Mediterranean. Filmed with digital cameras of differing quality, the sequence doesn't tell a story as much as it shows people from different backgrounds all interacting, including singer-songwriter Patti Smith. From there, we go to what appears to be the French countryside to observe an entirely different group of people, including a documentary crew and a family. For the finale, Godard brings together found images from Palestine, Barcelona and elsewhere, riffing on art and war along the way.
"Film Socialisme" would be a provocative, argumentative film regardless, but Godard ups the stakes by including what he calls "Navajo English" subtitles. Rather than translating the different languages we hear in the voieover or from the characters' mouths, the subtitles provide just a few random words that may or may not sync up with what's being said. When I first saw the film last year at a festival, the digital print contained no subtitles, creating a hugely disorienting experience. Now that I've seen the film with the "proper" subtitles, I can't say I "understood" "Film Socialisme" any better. Only being fluent in English, I definitely felt at a remove, largely unable to appreciate the juxtaposition between what words were on the screen and what's actually being said.
If all this sounds horribly pretentious, Godard isn't concerned. Cinema's patron saint of "Who said movies were supposed to be entertaining?," Godard has never been about offering audiences accessible, easy-going times at the theater: Since his first film, "Breathless," he's wanted to poke and prod at you, making you question exactly what constitutes a movie. Consequently, "Film Socialisme" is not for all tastes. (Put more accurately, it's only for a small sliver of the public.)
But despite the language barrier, I've found the film to be pretty engaging both times I've seen it. Please don't ask me to nail down specifics about what happens in "Film Socialisme": I'd flunk that test. But Godard's skill with startling images and evocative music remains potent in his old age. (He turns 81 this December.) And like a mixture of David Lynch's "Inland Empire" and Harmony Korine's "Trash Humpers," Godard's movie-essay has moments of pure cinema in which the images up there on the screen are truly transfixing, even if their meanings aren't entirely clear.
In particular, the film's first section is masterful, turning the cruise ship and its passengers into a microcosm for society. Commentary on everything from consumerism to the cute cat videos that are prevalent on the web is featured in this section, creating philosophical ideas that can't quite be articulated but are still felt very strongly. Neither of the other two sections resonate as deeply -- the second "movement" remains the biggest mystery -- but while you could never describe "Film Socialisme" as "fun" in the traditional Hollywood sense, there's a lot of adventure in trying to piece together exactly what Godard is up to here. There is a very good chance parts of "Film Socialisme" will infuriate you or bore you, but it's not all elitist nonsense, either: Godard has things to say about how civilizations collapse and what sort of future humanity has (if any). Even if you can't put your finger on exactly what he's after, the movie exudes a potent melancholy that's impossible to ignore. You couldn't live on a diet of combative films like this, but as an invigorating change of pace, it's well worth seeking out.
Grade: B
