The Carabineers (1963)

I don't understand how or why this movie was so much criticized. I just saw it on DVD and found it excellent. It's completely different of what Godard usually does : I tend to be a little disturbed by his systematic use of quotations (a good example is the recent "Eloge de l'amour"), and there is no such thing in "Les Carabiniers". The dialogs are completely pure, and there is a very clever use of enumerations, which seldom happens in a movie. Great scenes, like when the girl demands to tell a poem before she's executed, when Michel-Ange discovers the cinema, when Ulysse and Michel-Ange show Cléopâtre and Vénus the treasures they brought back from war... It's simple and beautiful.

throughout his work in the early to mid-sixties, jean luc godard rode the nouvelle vague by employing and twisting the classic features of a specific film genre. examples of this are his sci-fi (alphaville), and his beloved gangster film (breathless).when examining les carabiniers, his take on the war movie, one must see godard's purpose in two parts; one, as an anti-war movie, and two, as an anti-war-movie movie.that is, in addition to the visual social commentary which displays the standard horrific shots of dismemberment and destruction, godard uses the structural components of his film as a whole to mock films along the lines of 'private ryan'.this means that he refuses to use the concept of war as something that will prove to provide the viewer with any degree of vicarious pleasure, whether that pleasure be derived from identification with a noble lead (which is surely why he has ulysses and michelangelo be such jackasses), beautiful glimmering visuals, (hence the low-caliber film stock), or enjoyable montage and pacing (akin to the conclusive lengthy postcard recounting). to end this brief rebuff to those who compare this film to tomb raider, i will quote critic david steritt, who states that in les carabiniers, godard refuses to turn aggression into commodification.

Saw this film on TCM this past Friday and found it to be a weak effort attempting to be a powerful anti-war statement. Two uniformed French militia break into the home of this small family living in the French boonies and press the men into service with promises of untold wealth and plunder. They decide it sounds like a good deal and join the King's army. From there, we see them engage in the various pointless exploits of war until the King makes peace and their dreams of fortune turn to nothing. This film attempts to be a serious commentary on the nihilism of war but is executed without much depth. The two "list" scenes in the movie, (the riflemen detailing each item of plunder at the soldier's disposal and the French soldiers returning home with a suitcase full of snapshots of their travels), lasted, I would estimate, about a hundred years, and if you remove them from the film, the running time is about 9 minutes. Couple of good scenes (a titillating film being watched in small theatre and a pretty blonde revolutionary getting blown away by firing squad) but not enough to recommend this film. For better Godard, see Breathless or Le Petit Soldat. Leave this klunker in the discount rack. *1/2*

If someone were to make a parody of the stereotypical French New Wave Film of the 1960's, Les Carabiniers would be it. I've read Godard has this supposedly great sense of irony, but I think he was dead serious with this piece of garbage.The film was on TCM last night, so I figured, hey it's Godard, I'll broaden my cinematic resume. I shouldn't have bothered. The badly overdubbed soundtrack, the cliched narration, the dumb poetry reading, the ham-fisted anti-war polemics, it was all there. The scene where the younger soldier sees a movie for the first time is quite funny, but the rest of the movie is interminable. The scene where the two soldiers return home with thousands of postcards for their wives (girlfriends, sisters?) seemed to take an hour. Godard's point is as follows: young people are duped into fighting wars by the government telling them they can steal and plunder the world, but in the end you wind up with nothing. Deep, real deep Jean.My rating, 3/10. For the cinefiles out there, see Godard's "Breathless" and then check Godard off your list and move on to someone else.