Godard enchants the city of joy

KOLKATA: If 'Forever Mozart' left Kolkata enchanted and 'Notre Music' thrilled the city, 'Filme Socialisme' turned out to be the cerebral experience that this film festival had probably been waiting for. Screened on Wednesday, Jean-Luc Godard's latest film is a comment on the disintegration of Europe through a melange of conversations and a journey.It also questions the conventional cinematic form, breaking it completely to embrace a format that seeks to delink the dialogue from actions.
"Godard is the James Joyce of cinema. He has broken the mould and recreated it repeatedly which keeps his films new even today. I remember a film festival here in Kolkata back in the Seventies when hundreds queued up to watch a Godard film. It hasn't changed," said director Gautam Ghose, introducing the film.
The film has three parts - the first set on a cruise ship on the Mediterranean, the second involves a pair of children and the third centres around a visit to six destinations - Egypt, Palestine, Odessa, Hellas, Naples and Barcelona. Godard uses his mastery over colours to drive home his message. There are sequences where blue, yellow and red are used to a stunning effect. "Godard has philosophically questioned the existence of Europe and commented on the social and political decline of the continent. He is one who has always believed that Europe has never been the same after World War II and that it had a far greater impact on the continent than even the breaking up of the communist block in the late Eighties," said Sanjoy Mukhopadhyay, film expert.
A sequence in the film shows a girl and her younger brother summoning their parents to appear before a "tribunal" and demand answers on the themes of liberty, equality and fraternity. Scenes from the legendary film "Battleship Potemkin" keep coming back towards the latter half of the film, almost as a refrain. "This seems to have been deliberately done by Godard for two reasons. First, it draws a parallel to the cruise shown in the film. Secondly, perhaps more importantly,
it symbolizes and announces a departure from the conventional cinematic form that had first been broken by Battleship Potemkin," said Mukhopadhyay.
Film Socialisme ran into controversy soon after its screening at the Cannes film festival in 2010. There is a reference to Hollywood which says it has been set up by Jews. While a section of critics have panned the film as "anti-Jew", the Kolkata audience didn't seem to agree. It was rather an extension, critics and experts felt, of his dislike for Hollywood which he had once famouly described as an industry that uses a girl and gun to make a film.