User reviews

To call a post-Nineties Jean-Luc Godard's film "accessible" would be a stretch. But his new one, Goodbye to Language, is discernibly more appealing and less of a slog (70 minuets instead of 104) than his Film Socialisme (NYFF 2010). The latter occasioned Todd McCarthy's angry-sounding assertion that Godard is mean-spirited and exhibits "the most spurious sort of anti-Americanism or genuinely profound anti-humanism, something that puts Godard in the same misguided camp as those errant geniuses of an earlier era, Pound and Céline." This is less visible in Goodbye to Language, which spends a lot of time with a naked middle-class white couple in an apartment, and with Godard's own dog, Roxy, and is playful enough to be shot in 3D, of which it makes some good use. I do not see that use as "revolutionary," as Mike D'Angelo did in a Cannes bulletin for The Dissolve. I think in the face of a rote-acknowledged "master" (and Godard really did seem exciting and revolutionary back in the days of Breathless and La Chinoise) whom one can't make head nor tail of, it's natural to pick out elements one enjoys and blow them up into something important. Thus one notes that the distorted color in Goodbye to Language is sometimes gorgeous. And one wishes that more mainstream films dared to do such things more often, with one excuse or another.

Goodbye to Language, like Film Socialisme, is divided up into parts with portentous titles, which one would remember if they seemed to illustrate their titles in any relatable way. The NYFF festival blurb calls this "a work of the greatest freedom and joy," but it's not. It's didactic, full of general nouns (like "freedom" and "joy") thrown out with the verve of a French university student. It cites fifteen or twenty famous authors whose names were dropped or lines quoted; and ten or twelve classical composers, snippets of whose compositions are folded in to add flavor and importance. But when Mike D'Angelo says "it doesn't constantly seem as if he's primarily interested in demonstrating his own erudition," he's saying this because other Godard films have constantly seemed to be primarily interested in that, and this one just barely avoids it.

Here's what D'Angelo observes in the film's 3D that he thinks revolutionary (and this one moment is indeed remarkable): "Turns out he'd had the camera pan to follow an actor walking away from another actor, then superimposed the pan onto the stationary shot, creating (via 3-D) a surreal loop that, when completed, inspired the audience to burst into spontaneous applause. " It's hard to describe, and strange, and indeed original. I'd very much like to have watched this sequence -- which you do have to take off your 3D glasses to appreciate the transformative nature of -- with an audience keen enough to have noted its cleverness and applauded it. The audience I was with applauded at the end, but that just felt like an obligatory gesture, not the "olé" of connoisseurs noting a visual coup.

As D'Angelo says, since the Nineties Godard has been "a full-bore avant-garde filmmaker." This means his films are the kind of thing you might see showing in a loop in a darkened room of a museum. When any film makes no rational sense I remember my museum experiences of that kind of art film and am calmed. Such films have their place. They are like complex decorative objects. Yes, and Godard's references to Nietzsche (pronounced "NEETCH" by French- speakers) or Solzenitzen are like gilding on a frame. And offhand gibes like the man in the hat who says Solzenitzen didn't need Google (which also sounds funny in French) to make up the subtitle for a book, as D'Angelo puts it, "ranks high among the dumbest things a smart person has ever said." Godard is a smart person who in a long career has said plenty of dumb things. He would have been a lot better as a filmmaker if he'd done more showing and less telling, from a long way back.

But parts of Farewell to Language are bold and visually stimulating, and ought to be studied by conventional filmmakers, editors, or cinematographers to get some more original visual ideas. I also like another D'Angelo's Dissolve note (and he himself says this is his favorite Godard film since Weekend): "According to my Twitter feed, Goodbye To Language has reinvented cinema again—one dude went full Pauline Kael and compared it to Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon." Unfortunately, some after the screening I saw, with bunch of ostensible film writers, out in the lobby some were pronouncing that this was "the future of cinema." Not Marvel Comics?

Watched at NYFF 2014.

If you decide see this movie don't expect a big Hollywood blockbuster. It is shot with interesting angles and with different lenses. It is very abstract and philosophical. I already had an idea what it was about before seeing. And having taken a number of courses on film and literature I have sat through a number of these types of movies. Don't get me wrong I enjoyed the work, you just need to be in the proper frame of mind and ready to see it or else you will not get anything out of it.

If it sounds like it is too much work, perhaps this movie isn't for you.

If this sounds like a challenge, then grab a bag of popcorn turn it on and enjoy the art.

In this French-Swiss film, various vignettes are used to follow the lives of two couples and the dog of one of those couples as they occasionally philosophize.

Because this film is written and directed by Jean-Luc Godard, it is obligated to be as incomprehensible as possible to the average viewer. As I have seen many of his films before (some of which I have liked), I was prepared for an odd experience.

A synopsis on Wikipedia was helpful but it made me feel I had missed something. However, conventional plot is not a Godardian purpose.

If the intention is to create a dream-like experience to affect the subconscious mind, then the film does rather well. However, I still expect at least a minimal amount of understanding what I am watching. Luckily, the film was mercifully short at just an hour and ten minutes.

The French have always been the greatest thinkers. Philosophy is an art form for them, and an export commodity. Godard is a thinker, first and foremost, and seems to have decided finally that film is a medium for communicating ideas - not for telling stories or for entertainment or even propaganda (despite his lengthy Dziga Vertov phase), but the mere expression of ideas relating to the sociology of human existence. This film is full of ideas, hardly explored, merely expressed. Virtually every line is an epigram, obviously lifted straight from Godard's notebooks, and intoned gravely.

This film might form a trilogy of existential anguish with "Eloge de l'amour" (a goodbye to idealised love) and "Film Socialisme" (a goodbye to an idealised socialist utopia). "Goodbye to Language" is even bleaker: a goodbye to meaning, for without language there is nothing, neither action nor meaningful existence.

It starts out as another cynical diatribe against humanity and its many shortcomings of sense and sensitivity, the breakdown of which unleashes brutality in the first place, and, by natural extension, war. Brooding string orchestras firmly set the elegiac tone.

The allegory is developed by a highly stylised, bleached-out and barren couple - he, brutish, she, sensitive - walking around their home in stylised nudity like Adam and Eve, shamed by their inability to attain the simple happiness of simple communication.

Colour-saturated images of nature adorn the film: nature as the only simple optimism left. Godard's dog gradually steals the show, presented as a creature that has overtaken man in the ability to live a guiltless life.

I have seen no interpretations of what the metaphor is that the captions imply. But here is one: the medium itself is the metaphor. While often picturesque, the 3D effect is more often just odd. In no way does it add to the meaning of what we are seeing, but rather imposes a false theatricality upon things. Moreover, much of the 3D doesn't work, and, with the camera giving completely different perspectives on the nearest objects, surely cannot have been intended to work. It often ceased to be 3D and became two badly superimposed brain-jarring images. Some of these are so unworkable, so physically painful to look at that one must suppose either that Godard is taking a sadistic pleasure in stabbing us in the eyes, or that these images are meant to represent the actual dysfunctionality of the medium - overbearing technology that detracts more than it contributes to the meaning of things.

If that's one of the ideas at play, the film has wrong-footed everybody. If not, it has just wrong-footed me, but the idea is there for the taking and is worth thinking about, for that is entirely what the film is: something to think about, sadly.

I will mention before I start this review that sadly my experience was greatly hampered by a technical issue with the subtitles, I am not a french speaker but have watched movies with subtitles all my life. During the film the subtitles would regularly become blurry and hard to read. Because of that I found myself playing catch-up to everything that was being said.

Adieu au Langage/A Goodbye to Language features a couple of interesting 3D tricks, and I sure would invite another filmmaker to tackle a more ambitious experimental 3D film.

The couple of times these shots where featured in the film it sure made me wonder about how 3D could possibly be used as another element to add to the cinematic language, the same way music, editing and color have in the past.

Because of the technical problems with the subtitles I just might go watch this movie a second time.

Anyway for now my opinion is that, outside of a little bit of cool experimentation with 3D, this film was just people waxing philosophically. Often in the nude while, of course, smoking cigarettes.

This film, however philosophical it may be, will hurt you. Not in a way where you empathize with the characters so you come out stronger or more appreciative of what you have in your own life. I mean the film will literally cause you pain while you attempt to watch it. There are multiple scenes where Godard interlaces two scenes on-screen at the same time, which causes eye strain when watching with 3D glasses so much that I had to look away (and I have never before had trouble with IMAX or 3D). The sound mixing is so poorly done with stark contrasts and "experimental" shifts in the audio channels, that it gave me headaches. The only reason I kept watching was because I was in a theater and kept hoping the best star of the film, the dog, would do something interesting. Instead, I was subjected to watching a man on a toilet for what must have been at least five minutes. That is what should be on the movie poster instead -- to warn viewers of the most representative content. I've read my fair share of philosophy and have been to France twice, so I certainly thought I might like this. Instead, I would rank this within the worst five films I have ever seen. I'm almost inclined to watch Batman & Robin again to see which is more deserving of a Razzie.

Four years after French auteur Jean-Luc Godard's Film Socialisme, he comes back in full-force, toying with the 3D medium along with sticking to his vague methods of storytelling and development with Goodbye to Language. Godard continues to break down every cinematic convention, even over fifty years after revolutionizing just what cinema could be with his barrage of films from the French New Wave period. With this film, he bids farewell to language, focusing explicitly on the beauty of images and the erratic tonalities editing and visual manipulation can bring, continuing to play with the medium he hasn't kept his hands off since the 1950's.

Goodbye to Language is more of a video essay than a conventional film. The bare basic plot follows two young lovers who share sexual intimacy, disjointed, philosophical conversation as if they've just been greeted with Enlightenment principles, and your usual monogamous quibbles. Interjected in the chronicles of this love story are the random adventures of a stray dog named Roxy, who comes between this young couple as the seasons fade into one another and as she wanders through different locales.

The film could be summed up as an analysis of dualities in the world. Godard explores the idea of nature vs. metaphor, dividing the film into two segments of each. He explores the contrasting positions of male and female, European influence and Middle Eastern influence in modern day France through use of symbolic representations, man and nature, man and animal, and even idea and metaphor in one particular scene. This focus on dualism in every day life sets Goodbye to Language apart just a tad from most of Godard's contemporary offerings, which have been even more opaque and difficult to define.

At a certain point, I ceased taking notes on the film from a critical thinking point-of-view and simply begun taking notes on what I saw. Goodbye to Language features some of the most striking imagery I have yet to see in a Godard film. Seeing it in 2D, however, for the first time ever, I felt like I was robbed of something. Godard's interest in 3D filmmaking in the last couple years stems from his interest in technology and its timestamp on culture and culture's progress. He claims that 3D has yet to really be defined in purpose, and that, like cinema, calls for rampant exploration and manipulation. While most use 3D as a flash-in-the-pan gimmick, Godard seemingly uses it as a way to manipulate the viewer in terms of perception and visual order. One particular scene is said to go from one single shot to two separate ones, which could be viewed clearly through the left and right eye, before assembling back into a single 3D shot. I assume that wasn't the only subversive use of 3D in the film, and I feel had I been fortunate enough to watch the film with that added benefit, for the first time, I would've had an experience that really would've affected the film and not just alter the medium I used to watch it.

As is, in its 2D state, Goodbye to Language is still as frustrating as any Godard film. At the end of the experience, I find myself simply going over specific scenes rather than attempting to subscribe a meaning to the film entirely. The film is littered with fascinating shots that say more than narration ever could, with one particular shot being captured on a canted angle, showing the hands of three people at a small stand, two of which playing with their smartphones, the other paging through a book. Welcome to information gathering in the present day. So rarely has the current world been summed up so cleanly and elegantly in one unconventional shot. Another scene is just fascinating to look at, going from a canted angle showing the aforementioned couple naked before slowly panning to the right, readjusting itself to be a more traditional, straight-on full shot, before tilting itself again, this time to the right.

Many videographic changes are present here too. While some scenes are saturated with so many unique colors, movement, and almost psychedelic visualizations, others are presented like soap operas, with very dark and almost artificial sets and moody color schemes to match. Stray musings coming from scattered, mostly unidentified characters like, "soon everyone will need an interpreter to understand the words coming from their own mouths" are heard on a frequent basis, showing that Godard is constantly thinking and feeling rather than showing or telling.

The final Godardian principle Goodbye to Language adheres to is the fact that it's a lot more interesting to discuss than it is to sit through. Ambiguity is too specific to define the project, for not only does it barely qualify as a film but it's so indistinct that it can hardly be assigned any defining term. Beautiful visual poetry and scattered quotes of brilliance lurk all around this film, and my lower star rating is more out of compromise and downright uncertainty rather than an absolute truth. This is a work that can't accurately be defined nor accurately rated. It's far beyond the stars, some would say.

NOTE: Finally, consider one of the most striking musings on the duality between imagination in reality, which comes at the very beginning of the film in form of a title card, a true Godardian convention if there ever were one. It reads, "those lacking imagination take refuge in reality." If Goodbye to Language proves anything, it's that Godard has found purgatory between those two locations.

Starring: Héloïse Godet, Kamel Abdeli, Richard Chevallier, and Zoé Bruneau. Directed by: Jean-Luc Godard.

In the end I felt as if 70 minutes of my life had been stolen... not to mention nauseous from the unbelievably bad 3D cinematography/editing. How could it have won an award? This film was a mishmash of Hitler, nudity, and too many overly long scenes of an ugly man sitting on a toilet. There was no discernible plot, no character development... The best thing about the film was the home movie of Godard's dog and even that had been spoiled by over saturated colors and poorly applied 3D. Apparently this movie is the result of a combination of an over-the- hill "art" director and his cadre of sycophants. My recommendation is to save your money, avoid it when it comes to netflix.

Jean-Luc Godard was 84 when he made "Goodbye to Language". It shared the Jury prize at Cannes with 25 year old Xavier Dolan's "Mommy". Age is no barrier when it comes to making movies, right? Easy to be innovative at any age, right; be that Dolan's mucking about with the size of the screen or 84 year old Godard's abandonment of narrative altogether. Neither film is likely to please all of the pundits although Godard's did come runner-up in Sight and Sound's poll of the best films of the year. Of course, it isn't just language that Godard is saying goodbye to here; by choosing to make his film in 3D it's as if he has decided to turn his back on 'conventional' film-making. It's not that we haven't been here before; the old codger has been subverting film language for decades.

Since 'discovering' politics in the late sixties Godard has been dispensing with traditional narrative in film after film. If this is less political and even more abstract than we have come to expect it is no less infuriating though, for reasons I can't quite explain, it is also very watchable. That, of course, may have a lot to do with the look of the picture rather than the sound of it. Visually it is extraordinarily beautiful even if it makes no real sense, (perhaps you might pick up on his themes after several viewings).

There are no real 'characters' as such though a man, a woman, (both frequently naked; even at 84 Godard likes his pound of flesh), and a dog appear frequently though it is sometimes hard to know who is actually speaking, not that it matters. This picture isn't called "Goodbye to Language" for nothing. Words are both profound and superfluous while the film itself feels like something we could just as easily have done without. That's not by way of criticism but is rather more a statement of fact that, I'm sure, Godard might endorse. I'm glad I've seen it and I'm glad the old reprobate is still flying in the face of fashion. No-one else could have made it and surely that is Godard's gift as well as his legacy.

"Goodbye to Language" by Jean-Luc Godard is a daring and experimental cinematic work that pushes the boundaries of traditional filmmaking. Directed by the renowned New Wave director, this film is a testament to Godard's unconventional approach to storytelling and his innovative use of technology.

The film follows a man and a woman, presumably in a romantic relationship, as they walk around a house in the nude, while a dog ventures off into the forest. However, the majority of the film is comprised of repurposed footage, ranging from antiquated World War II footage to clips from other films, such as Alexandre Aja's "Piranha 3D" remake.

One of the most striking aspects of "Goodbye to Language" is its utilization of 3D technology. Godard takes a unique approach to 3D, often requiring the audience to close one eye to see certain images or alternate their vision to see different objects. This innovative technique adds a layer of complexity and intrigue to the viewing experience.

Despite its experimental nature, the film is not without its flaws. Some scenes, particularly those involving discussions about mass-produced technology functioning as Hitler's dream-come-true scenario, and the conversation about human equality through defecation, are interesting in their own right. However, Godard's turgid language and stereotypically "French art film" set-ups make these scenes seem intentionally pretentious, draining much of the meta-humor that could have been present.

Overall, "Goodbye to Language" is a challenging and thought-provoking film that showcases Jean-Luc Godard's unparalleled mastery of cinema. While it may not be for everyone, it is a testament to Godard's willingness to experiment and push the boundaries of what is possible in filmmaking.

Rating: 6/10.

On 1st viewing of Godard's Goodbye to Language,you have no narrative, just a man and a woman,later a dog.There is repetition: the use of a new technique,3D,without rules,to show how a child or animal sees the world,with the use of primary colours in spring or autumn,or colours drenched ,bleeding out of the object.He uses heavy inter-titles like 'Nature' or ' Metaphor'.Godard wants to go beyond language,while paying homage to words at the same time.He quotes lavishly many writers,poets, thinkers,philosophers,painters,and plays the work of different musicians, where the music plays then goes dead. Alternatively, the screen goes black while people are speaking or music is still playing. Godard wants to have no preconceptions,just see through his lens the world nakedly, reflecting the world through these new techniques.We wander in forests,look up at trees,see the beauty of flowers, roam with a dog by a lakeside or as it rolls in snow,or in urban settings focus on a chair in the foreground. Subject: the idea is simple: a married woman and a single man meet.They love,they argue,fists fly.A dog strays between town and country.The seasons pass.The man and woman meet again. The dog finds itself between them.The other is in one,the one is in the other and they are three.The former husband shatters everything.A 2nd film begins:the same as the 1st, and yet not.From the human race we pass to metaphor.This ends in barking and a baby's cries.

Freud and the art of film began at the start of the 20th century,they both in some ways are parallel developments, exploring reality, based on new techniques.Godard shows us perception and consciousness,how an animal's eyes are unclouded by consciousness. Godard shows human beings weighed down by interpretations,needing interpretation.He uses 3D film in this baffling experimental drama,turning the technology on its head(no car chases,nor animated dragons or objects hurling towards the screen) by using his 3rd dimension to send contrasting images to each of the viewer's eyes or-in one particular haunting sequence-to add spatial depth to the sight of a man sitting on a toilet,pooping.This is a kind of equality we all share. The idea that existence is about trying to reconcile the "real" world with the subjective experience of the world, and the names and notions we use to catalogue and define the world--but the digressions are what make it sing. "I will barely say a word," says a voice on the soundtrack--maybe Godard?--adding, "I am looking for poverty in language." While the film is drenched in the rich sensual experience of Godard's visual language.An interesting motif is images of running water,water lapping shores of a lake,sea water,a river in full spate,rain falling,even the water of a shower:the importance of water in the origin myths of heroes, and dreams linked to childbirth.

He quotes Monet as painting what he doesn't see.We as human spectators, look at the observable universe.To scientists,numbers and the laws of science are real,independent entities,but they are constructions of human thought attempting to seize something of the universe.There is no transcendent perspective,we are dreamers.We can only really see ourselves when we are looking into another person's eyes.The camera captures everything it sees-we passively like the camera comply-and yet not seeing anything. As though Godard is making the movie for the camera and for the sake of the film itself.There are no conventions of plot or character.One of the characters says she "hates character". Density,compression,digression,montage are utilised freely.Lettered Texts are printed on top of each other or over images.We get ideas tossed at us like Hitler's rise to power coincided with the invention of TV,or will Russia ever be a part of Europe,without ceasing to be Russia?That a new Godard film is an event,something that may better be seen in an art gallery:as distribution in the UK by Studiocanal has folded and it's been rushed to DVD.This is a shame as the full 3D experience can only be gained in a movie theatre. in Goodbye, Godard's use of 3D is a matter of using the screen (with its illusory extra dimension of depth) as a multimedia space in the true sense: he's creating both a painting and a sculpture.Obscure,maddening,obsessed with history and cinema.In a word: awesome!

What a piece of crap! A great filmmaker has the luxury of an experimental delirium. I found no connecting thread, nothing to follow, loose dialogues, meaningless phrases .... I could not tell what it is about. There seems to be a couple talking about something at times ... and a dog (?). The director uses sequences interrupted by different images, with a lot of distortion and saturation of colors, white and black, noise ... Maybe it's only for connoisseurs. If someone wants to explain it to me....grateful will I be.

At least it's short (just over 1 hour). Do not watch it! Nothing more to say.

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"Those lacking imagination take refuge in reality." (Beginning on-screen text)

Reality, equality, sexuality, conviviality, and more come from New Wave patriarch Jean Luc Godard in his newest exciting expressionistic mess, Goodbye Language 3D. It's a mash up of images that in the end add up to the master's take on the corruptions of communication, even his beloved cinema, and the challenges of loving while dealing with that very French "existentialism." The opening statement quoted above establishes the challenge of being your own person, your own creator, in the face of the world's sensory and intellectual influences. After all, for the existentialist it takes a lifetime to create a character, which in Godard's view of things, is shaped by forces outside the person, and inevitably doomed, except for the dog.

He is the avatar of uncorrupted essence, a Godardian motif whose sensory life is its whole life, with the exception of loving humans more than itself. The complicating factor of clashing characters, even those we communicate with daily, is expressed in a naked, adulterous couple. They seem to clash about staying with each other, having babies, and possibly the ennui of making love over an extended time.

As he sits on the "throne" like The Thinker, with accompanying scatological sounds, and naked she stares, he declares that "thought reclaims its place in poop." Well, life does become "s__t" for many humans, at least as Godard interprets life, but we share the crap together, equally, so to speak. On the TV screen, Godard places Ava Gardner and Gregory Peck mooning after each other in The Snows of Kilimanjaro. But that's the unreal movies, Godard's artistic medium, which is not the reality of the defecating lover.

In the end, it's about expressing us, as Godard ironically does in his title, emphasizing the participation of new technology like 3D. Images are his world, and seemingly he uses them to express his feeling of chaos in the film world. When he overlaps stereo images to confuse the audience, he is visually representing the fusion of contemporary conflicts in the image-communication grid. When a bookseller observes that Solzhenitsyn didn't need Google, Godard makes a powerful case for the non-technical world.

Goodbye to Language 3D is a sassy, subversive, disconcerting, sometimes humorous angle of vision from the infant terrible of French cinema and a cinematic prophet of doom. It's a long way from the carefree "Breathless" but close to the contemporary Babel of world dysfunction. Only a dog can see the world as it really is: We are getting things wrong all over the globe.

Godard's films often seem more like essays than "movies" per se. While this film can be called narrative only in the loosest definition of the term, and contains much of the direct philosophizing that has characterized Godard's late oeuvre, it struck me as being so immediately and intensely cinematic. This is absolutely a film. What do I mean by that? I guess I mean that it can't, perhaps shouldn't, be analyzed and translated into an essay synopsizing its ideas, which are undeniably rich.

First and foremost, this is a work about the images on screen, and what images they are. I didn't get to see Goodbye to Language in 3D, but I can only imagine it to be an almost overwhelming experience. The painterly grace of Godard's imagery cannot be overstated. (To think of the lively but crude camera-work of his early films when compared with the spectacular aesthetic grace on display here is to imagine an incredible artistic journey, perhaps the most radical maturation ever witnessed by an auteur.) Using a variety of different cameras and mediums, this seems to be Godard's most urgent attempt to capture life- in-the-world through cinema. The dude is really old now, and I suspect he may intend this as a final statement, him saying goodbye to the language to which he has devoted his life.

I also think it might be Godard's single most affirmational work. There is still plenty of the sardonic world-weariness we have come to expect from the man, but at heart this is a work about the way joy gives birth to pain, yet somehow manages to occasionally interrupt and sooth pain. Godard seems to be embracing life as he prepares to leave it, perhaps in hope of achieving the state of mind of the dog that is one of the film's three main characters: to love something more than one loves one's self.

I have said very often that I don't like Jean-Luc Godard's films though he is considered one of the best directors in the world. Usually his movies tell a banal and simple story with much ununderstandable sophistucation. This movie tells the story of a married woman that meets a single man and they fall in love with each other and talk all the time in pretentious meaningless philosophical dialogues through meaningless visual scenes and sometimes surrealistic images , arguing, discussing and dressing and undressing themselves. The story has no conducting wire and if there is a message that Godard wants to pass, once more like in his other movies we don't know what it is about. To watch this movie is indeed to lose time.

This movie was an experience I will never forget. It is a movie that would be cheapened to describe too much. It is about so many things to those who will let it mean something. As for what it meant to me? I will give you a little to go on. For me, it was about how guilty we all are of being so haunted by guilt for everything- unlike the imaginative, loyal dog who has no idea what guilt is. For me, It was about how many things are lost in translation between people- even those who are quite intimate with one another. It was about how our feelings have became the Hitler to our humanity. It was also about how the only language we all know (even the dog) is our bowel movements. However, they don't mean **** to the dog as he goes on to experience more- never worrying where he left his waste or if you saw him drop it. It is also about how lost we all are in artificial means of communication- even film. IF you think I have cheapened it too much, you need more imagination. This film has so much to give- just be open to listen. But it is not an easy watch let me say. It is only a little bit more than an hour of your time. It meant a great deal to me. Godard was 84 when he made it and his wisdom is as memorable as every color (or lack thereof sometimes) in this potential swan song. If it means nothing to you, all you have lost is an episode of "The Voice" or some other magic trick. This is a director's poem about his life and his reminder to you to write yours.

As far as treats are concerned, Héloïse Godet is it in this maddeningly annoying 3-D movie. We men get to enjoy seeing her naked. And for the ladies there's a little bit of male full frontal nudity as well.

But there's no doubt the man is outshone by the resplendent Ms Godet who attended a screening at Roger Ebert's Film Festival this April 15th. She was gracious and as attractive as she is in the movie, but she related a surprising tale of never having seen the dog that shares a lot of footage with the actors in this movie. Add a couple of the other oddities here that I will keep to myself as they border on being spoilers and Godard's intent is clear.

I've never been to Paris, but I've heard again and again that people there don't pick up their dog's droppings. This movie is a clever and effective answer to those who wonder why dogs are allowed to dirty the city's streets with so much impunity. I can't say I'm not a bit swayed, but if it were up to me I'd have people love their dogs AND pick up after it.

Godard's argument is more substantial than you'd expect, but judging by the discussion of his film tonight, his attempt to educate us cretins is likely to be a wasted if audacious effort. Still, if you insist on seeing this movie, and if you will try to follow his argument, you just might enjoy it enough to not feel insulted.

You know, it's always so common that people who dislike/hate films like this to call fans "pretentious", among other names, highlighting their reasons for liking films like these as having to do with self-importance. I do tend to like really out-there stuff so I know how it feels. But really, it just comes down to whether one enjoyed something like this or not. It's not about the "meaning", since one can like or dislike a film regardless of how well they understood it. Despite not knowing what the hell this was saying, I was actually enjoying it. I'm sure some hated it from the get-go and it was torture, but for me the first 30 minutes had me mostly intrigued. That fascination with it lessened as the film went on. I don't think something like this really works for more than 30 minutes, at most. I'm sure some would disagree, but while I don't hate it, I'm not a fan of it overall. I enjoyed it until I didn't, simple as that.

The 1 star reviews are absurd for this. Upon knowing Godard, why bother seeing this movie? Godard, at his advanced age is still making arresting, thoughtful work. A beautiful film while being inventive. Bravo maestro!

Goodbye to Language (2014)

*** (out of 4)

Josette (Heloise Godet) and Gedeon (Kamel Abdeli) meet, fall in love, fight and so on.

If that sounds like a weak plot synapsis then I should mention that this is the latest film from Jean-Luc Godard who of course takes something simple and throws all sorts of "other" stuff into it. As you'd expect from Godard, there are some very weird moments throughout the picture and if you've seen his recent stuff like FILM SOCIALISME then you know that his style is just as wild as ever. I say this because of how Godard is telling his stories now. Sometimes you will have a scene playing out and then it just stops and moves onto something else. Something else Godard likes to play with in this film is the volume as sometimes we barely hear the characters and then out of nowhere we get extremely loud noises.

There's no question that Godard has his own way of doing things and more times than not it annoys the heck out of me and I ended up not liking the movie. That's certainly not the case with this one here as I really enjoyed it, although if you're expecting me to tell you deep, hidden secrets in the movie then that's not going to happen. There are countless Godard die-hards out there that will look into the deep hidden meanings of this film but that's not me. My reason for liking the picture is its basic love story that's at the center. I can't say this is an original love story or anything we haven't seen countless times before but it kept me entertained.

A lot of the credit has to go to lead actress Godet. Every time she was on the screen it was impossible to look away from her. A lot of times she doesn't even have dialogue but there was just something about her that made you focus in on her and there's no doubt that she adds a lot to the picture. Abdeli is also good in his role and the two have some nice chemistry together. Godard also likes to show off both of their bodies because there's a lot of full frontal nudity going on here including a brief shot of some oral sex being performed.

GOODBYE TO LANGUAGE has all sorts of scenes surrounding the "love story" including bits dealing with Hitler's plan and there's even an re-enactment of Mary Shelley writing Frankenstein. I think Godard's greatest decision was, unlike FILM SOCIALISME, he kept the running time to a short 69-minutes. At such a short running time the film never seemed too long and things never really got dragged out to the point where you wanted the film to end. This certainly isn't a masterpiece but I found the film to be quite entertaining in its own way.