Weekend: A Wave of Weird

Jean-Luc Godard [Trailer]

Don't ask...

Watching the French New Wave 'classic' Weekend could be easily likened to voluntarily subjecting oneself to a charity trek through the Amazon for which you are severely under dressed. You watch it because you feel obligated out of respect for cinema's 'greats' to give it a chance, however ultimately find yourself thoroughly under prepared for the onslaught of half finished themes, casual approach to death and complete digression from any coherent story line.


French New Wave Cinema is a concept coined by critics as an "explosion of vibrant, innovative, and highly self-conscious films by young French directors in the late 1950s and early 1960s" (Full Article).With a description this fluffy they clearly also found themselves scrambling for an understandable explanation for what I can only describe as a cacophony of jumbled concepts shoved into 105 minutes by director Jean-Luc Godard. Quite honestly the only thing I followed was the progression in the lead female's fashion as her and her husband traipsed across the countryside coming across a seemingly endless assortment of random characters each contributing their 10 cents worth on the state of post war France. I sat in utter confusion through the perplexing prose of Emily Brontë, French style, and after they'd burned her to death, dozed off in a barnyard tribute to Mozart before being whisked into the long-winded lectures of two ethnic dump truck drivers. Altogether an exhausting experience and one I won't be repeating. Naturally, the film ends in a regression to a more or less tribal existence concluding in cannibalism, murder and one less lead character.

“To make a film all you need is a girl and a gun.” 

Now, while I concede I can never even begin to make head or tail of this eccentric film, I can still pause my ranting to appreciate some of it's more technical breakthroughs. The editing of this film, though not as revolutionary as when it was first used in Godard's Breathless (more on Breathless editing) is what makes this film bearable for many of us self-confessed obligatory viewers. Fast jump cuts, long pans and not to mention the iconic twelve minute traffic jam scene are all regarded as unique editing decisions made by Godard and other New Wave filmmakers in a time when the industry was virtually dominated by the predictable formula of those classic assembly line Hollywood blockbusters. Films such as Weekend are credited with giving "birth to such ideas as “la politique des auteur,” jump cuts and the unimportance of linear structure" (Full Article) and ultimately providing a much needed wave of unexplored ideas that further inspired the art of cinema to new levels of creative storytelling.

All in all, I would advice anyone wishing to expand their cultural palette with this film to proceed as cautiously as they would with their real one. Rather like anchovies Weekend is an acquired taste, and one that certainly did not resonate with me. To conclude I will leave you in the capable hands of Godard, who once famously stated, “to make a film all you need is a girl and a gun.” It is unfortunate I did not possess a gun whilst watching this film, perhaps then this would be a different story.

For now,
Tilly