Masculin Féminin (2006)

Smart, philosophical, cool, sexy, playful, subversive, and perfect to the time period – I just loved 'Masculin Feminin'. There is an indie, impromptu feeling to the film, which is told in chapters, and includes beautiful Parisian street scenes, thought-provoking quotes, and great performances from Jean-Pierre Léaud and Chantal Goya, as well as the supporting cast. It's said that director Jean-Luc Godard didn't have an actual script, and instead used hand-written notes he would come up with the night before. While that could have led to disorganized chaos, here it works, and brilliantly. Sometimes heard with street noise in the background, the dialogue seems natural even when it's provocative, or when characters are in sequences that are essentially interviews. It's not a linear, simple story and that may put some viewers off, but if you think about it, along the way Godard touches on love, sex, homosexuality, politics, the antiwar movement, violence, race relations, pop culture, and of course, the youth of 1960's France, saying a lot in this film. There are surreal elements, and hey, you even get a cameo from Brigitte Bardot. Very entertaining, and on a number of levels.Quotes: "If you kill a man, you're a murderer. If you kill millions of men, you're a conqueror. If you kill them all, you're God.""We went to the movies often. The screen would light up, and we'd feel a thrill. But Madeline and I were usually disappointed. But Madeline and I were usually disappointed. The images were dated and jumpy. Marilyn Monroe had aged badly. We felt sad. It wasn't the movie of our dreams. It wasn't the total film we carried inside ourselves. That film we would have liked to make, or more secretly, no doubt, the film we wanted to live."Madeleine: Do you think one can live alone? Always alone. Paul: No, I don't think one can, it's impossible. Without tenderness you'd shoot yourself."We can suppose that, 20 years from now, every citizen will wear a small electrical device that can arouse the body to pleasure and sexual satisfaction."

"Masculin Feminin" is a definitive example of French New Wave filmmaking. It is experimental, comic, risky, wild, and fun, a spectacle that find cinematic magic within even the most subtle and mundane of situations. Although it is often listed as nothing more than a drama, this is also an extremely funny movie, perhaps one of Jean-Luc Godard's very funniest. From the opening moments, bizarre comic mischief is springing left and right. Through unexpected surrealism and occasional violence, Godard masterfully weaves dark humor into this often tragic love story.The performances are also quite exceptional. Jean-Pierre Léaud further stabilizes his spot among the greatest French actors, and Chantal Goya is no less than absolutely charming and delightful. The characters are well developed-often likable, but sometimes despicable, like most human beings. There are times in which you, as an audience member, agree with their actions and beliefs, and there are times in which you must disagree. Through their ups and downs, "Masculin Feminin" explores a youthful couple's relationship in a unique and hysterical way. Fusing satire, sadness, fantasy, and comedy, "Masculin feminin" is very much a Jean-Luc Godard love story, meaning that it is heavily stylized, but also heavily realistic, just not in the conventional sense.

While i do enjoy other Godard films like Breathless and Band of Outsiders. This film is an exercise in frustrating boredom. Their is little substance to this film. The main character seems to be the only actor trying. The rest of the performances in this film seem to only be capable of getting across to the viewer that they are in fact watching a movie. The film is broken up into several long, poorly composed shoots. The go on so excruciatingly long that you wonder if the film was even edited. The complete meandering of the dialog only serves to draw out the pain of watching this film. In a film that builds up the idea of senseless violence from the very beginning the end comes out of left field and just serves to put a final stab into a long dead film experience. Clearly a wasted effort by a great director.

Masculine Feminin is my favorite Godard movie! Chantal Goya's Ye-Ye score gives the movie an incredibly youthful freshness. The innocent naiveté of Ye-Ye is presented as an oxymoron in a French culture being deluged by Pop Culture and consumer materialism. Paul prefers classical music and despite his Marxism has fairly traditional sexual values. France lost its innocence with this movie. While I would call this movie tame by our our celeb sex tape standards, France restricted access to this movie to those over 18. Some interesting sexual / bisexual stuff that is subversively alluded to. The Swedish sex film (a mise-en-abîme) and the homosexual kiss in the cinema bathroom are self-explanatory. (The later echoes James Baldwin's opening in Another Country.) Godard can didactically beats it over your head - witness his prescient comments on the American involvement in Vietnam, yet in the same movie he can be remarkably subtle. Did Paul commit suicide or was it an accident? What is Madeline's relationship with Elizabeth? Godard chronicles France in transition from the hegemony of the Catholic ethos to the student uprising, which would occur in 1968.It is ironic when you consider the national trauma of the NAZI invasion and the Gallic intellectual cynicism; however, the Beatles and the Sexual Revolution seems to have come later to France. Individualism and consumerism overcoming a group mentality whether Godard's Marxism or the mainstream Catholic Church. Odd Paradox when you consider the traditional association of the French with libertines. Hmm....Léaud later said he trembled when he did the bathroom scene with Goya. Goya wouldn't do a nude shower scene even behind a frosted glass. (BB is wonderful eye candy in Mepris if that is what you want.) While Masculin Femin is cavalier about prostitution, it is deeply engaged in the structural transformation occurring in France in how men and women define their sexual roles.I'm not a movie critic but I enjoyed watching and re-watching this movie. I think it is a more entertaining movie than Breathless or Contempt from the fun perspective. Jean-Paul Belmondo defines cool in the same way as Marcello Mastroianni in La Dolce vita but I'm talking about how a movie can go beyond style and talk about human relationships. On a superficial note, BB is nice in Mepris but as an incurable romantic I'm still drooling over Miss Elsa Leroy's fuzzy sweater in M/F.I think when Godard later becomes more experimental and didactic he loses his mainstream audience. I am one of that mainstream audience and that is truly my loss. :(