Sunday, May 20, 2012

Weekend

A married bourgeois French couple, both seeing others on the side and both with murderous intentions for their spouse, set out on a nightmarish weekend road trip to attain an inheritance from the woman's dying father, and end up encountering bizarre traffic jams and bandits before joining a radical guerrilla unit and devolving into cannibalism. "Weekend" is Jean-Luc Godard's outrageous critique of France's upper class and perhaps represents the beginning of the end of his utilizing any discernible storytelling techniques. The film feels dated, and like much of his other work, the meaning feels impenetrable as we are supplied with a meandering story and incomprehensible subtitles. Of note, however, is an impressive early scene featuring an 8-minute seemingly unbroken dolly shot of a lengthy and outlandish traffic jam. Godard is a New Wave director who helped reinvent the cinema, and while he has made a number of fascinatingly entertaining films, he has always seemed obliged to stay ahead of the 8-ball, and that is clearly evident in this film, though it is still considered one of the seminal works of the 60s.