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A Woman is a Woman - Criterion CollectionRating:
Release Date: 22 June, 2004 Retail Price: $29.95 OUR Price: $26.99 You SAVE: $2.96! Cast: |
A Woman is a Woman - Criterion Collection Reviews
Angela est tres mignon!
Reading the plot of this film is not going to be helpful to you in gaining a sense of it. It's not about the plot. If film is exclusively about narrative for you, I would suggest that you not buy this film. This film is about the characters, the incredibly adorable Angela in particular, the images, the playfulness and cleverness of the direction, and the music/audio.
Angela is winsome, irresistable. I've been trying to bat my eyelashes to such effect as hers, but with limited success. She pouts, she prances. She tells Emile and Alfred that she will go out with whomever does the most extraordinary thing. At this, Emile and Alfred take turns shadow boxing and generally behaving in a delightfully absurd manner.
We are aware that this is a Godard film from the beginning. The music strangely stops and starts in the opening scene, for apparently no reason. Godard also will focus on a character (Emile) and then do a very slow pan across the room to Angela, and then have some sort of textual explication at the bottom of the screen. In between scenes, he might do a rapid montage of one character's scenes throughout the movie, also for no apparent reason. And of course, his film often refers to film. For example, Alfred, on entering Emile's and Angela's apartment, tells them to make it quick, because "Jules and Jim" is on that night. All of these devices suggest a playfulness that, for me, defines the film. Everytime I see this film (and I have seen it many, many times) I am reminded that great art, and life in general, need not be staid and heavy-handed. We can have a lighter touch, to great effect.
Lighter than a Souffl�
Godard is prolific with Parisian stories about beautiful young women; ah, Anna Karina at least, his fetching real life babe. The French New Wave whips by breathlessly, er, make that Breathless, but usually in black and white. A Woman is a Woman is a surprising Matisse splash of color. I was never sure what Karina's real hair color was, but in this one, she is auburn. Breathless, a salute to Humphrey Bogart if Bogey was a Parisian hood, made Godard famous. Then there was One Life to Live where Karina learns the prostitute trade. Somewhere in that period, he made another hood film, Band of Outsiders. All these films have the Godard touch, actors talking to the film audience directly, set shots of the back of actor's heads, strange musical interludes, stranger screen scores, or nonsensical takes on locals and locales. Always the charming Karina mesmerizes the viewer, making up for flimsy, farcical plots with couchette charm.
Woman is not Godard's best, but it is sexy with the strippers as your average working girls and the voyeuristic men, joyless and peculiar. The sudden jerkiness of the film score, sarcasm directed at Hollywood melodramas I'm sure, the jerky dancing and strutting in front of a mirror by Karina, the laughable sex farce, a m�nage is lighter than a souffl�.
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