Can there be such a thing as too-extreme Jean-Luc Godard? Gerald Peary, his appetite whetted by the buzz that surrounded the legendary New Wave filmmaker’s new movie at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, describes Éloge de l’amour as typical late-Godard "gnomic mishmash"; you can read about the mosh-pit goings-on at the Cannes screening and the ensuing press conference in Gerry’s "Film Culture" column, opposite.
I was less disappointed than Gerry by Éloge de l’amour and more intrigued — but it’s certainly not Godard’s return to New Wave form. His great films — from À bout de souffle through to Weekend — were tethered by comic-strip plots and by sympathetic acting by the likes of Jean-Pierre Belmondo and Jean Seberg (À bout de souffle), Michel Subor (Le petit soldat), Jack Palance, Michel Piccoli, and Brigitte Bardot (Le mÉpris), Eddie Constantine (Alphaville), Jean-Pierre LÉaud (Masculin-fÉminine), and most of all Godard’s wife, Anna Karina. That’s what kept his flights of political and philosophical fancy grounded — and it’s what’s been missing from his films since the early ’70s.
It’s still missing here. Edgar (Bruno Putzulu) wants to make a film about love that will focus on three couples, one young, one mature, one elderly. While trying to throw this project together, he runs across a woman (CÉcile Camp) he’d met in Brittany three years earlier, when she was helping her Resistance-member grandparents negotiate a contract with the Americans (the name Spielberg is mentioned) who want to film their story. In the part two flashback, we see Edgar and "Elle" (that’s how she’s listed in the cast) together, but the conversation still smacks more of man’s (or at least Godard’s) search for the Feminine Ideal than of anything involving love.
Of course, as an essay in how film can be more than an illustrated story (as 99 percent of all movies are), Éloge de l’amour is essential one-of-kind cinema. But don’t expect to get the full benefit from just one viewing — you might have to camp out at the Brattle. In French with English subtitles. (98 minutes)