«Le Redoutable», a fearsome mixed bag

Cinema Wednesdays - Loris S. Musumeci

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«You're always complaining about being alone, but it's you who's rejecting the whole world.»

Jean-Luc loves Anne. Anne loves Jean-Luc: despite their different ages and worlds. She's a charming young philosophy student. He's Godard. The master of the new sixties, the imminent director of Contempt and’Breathless. He talks only cinema, thinks only cinema, lives only cinema. His companion tries to follow him in this inexhaustible passion, although her gaze is turned more to the eyes of her beloved than to a viewfinder.

She plays for him La Chinoise; a sanctimonious piece of cinematic garbage that wants to give lessons in Maoism. The filmmaker enters a crisis and wants to commit himself fully to the great Red Revolution. Anne, somewhat submissive, follows him. This marked the beginning of a gradual decline for Jean-Luc Godard, who rejected everything, even his own cinema. May '68 swept the bourgeois couple into a series of burlesque adventures, until they finally broke up.

Bad taste...

Michel Hazanavicius has taken risks with Le Redoutable. One of which was to create a counter-biography of a giant, featuring an idiotic, arrogant anti-hero. Obviously, the Godardians took offense. But that's not the film's main problem. All the more so since this alternative biopic is interesting and fashionable. The success of Barbara, also in theatres, bears witness to this.

What's clearly a problem is the heavy-handedness of the script, with its sometimes vulgar and tasteless humor. The trace of the claimed second degree, where excess pretends to be funny, is very French indeed. Just think of 99 francs, of the same type. The sexual plot is repeated, culminating in a scene in which nudity reaches its climax. Anne's and Jean-Luc's genitals are brutally exposed to the audience, and Jean-Luc whispers: «It's amazing that the directors want to show actors naked.»

Another slippage is the Nouvelle Vague air. The little camera games are tiring. From a sudden switch to 4:3 format to shots in negative, the director overdoes it. These procedures take on a parodic attitude, already seen and seen again. The connivance of derision that emerges fails to achieve its goal. The film fails.

... and good

Despite this, there are still a number of achievements to be applauded. Apart from the wearying use of form, the shots of the characters filmed in profile offer a genuine aesthetic. In the same vein, the alternation between close-ups and medium shots is a feast for the eyes. A remarkable scene is that of the union between the two protagonists, where everything is suggested by rhythmic music and repetitive focuses on the mouth, revealing excited teeth beneath folded lips, a sign of pleasure.

Last but not least, Stacy Martin and Louis Garrel are excellent; the sixties atmosphere is striking; and the sets mark the film's highest level. The books, paintings and clothes all shine. Michel Hazanavicius has taken the easy way out with the obscenity and cheesy humor of the Redoubtable, which remains light, pleasant and fearsomely mixed.

«So goes life aboard the Redoutable.»

Write to the author: loris.musumeci@leregardlibre.com

Photo credit: © festival.cannes.com