Jean-Luc Godard’s latest pretentious waffle arrives with some decent word – he’s pushing the boundaries, questioning the language and grammar of film, etc – but all the reviews seem to be written by the same kind of person that was standing in the queue behind Woody Allen in Annie Hall.
In short, Goodbye To Language 3D is terrible. And not just your garden variety terrible – it’s frightfully boringly terrible. If it was revealed that this is a joke, that it was directed by a first year film student, would it garner the same plaudits? Methinks not.
Deliberately adding nothing to the film and deliberately shoddy (there’s nothing wrong with the glasses – it’s supposed to be like ‘that’), the 3D is a gag, but the one person laughing is Godard. Jumping from different film stock to digital and back again, Goodbye To Language is haphazardly edited together with images superimposed on other images that are out of focus (deliberately so), Dutch angles, and inverted shots. All the while there’s the suspicion that the subtitles, gleefully hopping about the screen, and the narration don’t match up. Oh, and there’s some footage of a dog knocking about.
Godard is out to buck trends, challenges the predictable narrative, and asks the question: What is film? Well, hopefully not this. As usual with these supposed revolutionary takes on the form, the fact that the existence of conventional cinema is essential for films like this to rebel against is conveniently ignored.
Once in a while Godard attempts to worm some sort of narrative out of the mess, framing two naked souls (Godet far more naked than Abdeli) lounging about their dour-looking house as they ponder life, existence and some other stuff. To his credit, Godard pokes fun at himself here, having Abdeli defecate while he and Godet engage in another pretentious conversation. But that’s like laughing at the hole in your school pants before the class have a chance to slag you.
Mercifully short at seventy minutes, Goodbye To Language 3D turns out to be not short enough and thoughts like, ‘Does that include the credits?’ creep in. Only to be enjoyed only those who wear scarves indoors and have strong opinions on types of cheese.
I need a large polo mallet.