Tuesday 18 February 2020

MADE IN U.S.A. no stars

Godard at his most infuriating. "Made in U.S.A." is visually superb, (Raoul Coutard is once again the DP), but so enigmatic as to be virtually pointless. It's like an academic treatise on American Film Noir; in other words, how not to do a film noir. If it's meant to be politically relevant it was lost on me. Dropping words like 'Communism' and 'Hanoi' in the middle of a scatalogically surreal screenplay don't imbue them with significance anymore than naming your characters Donald Siegel, Richard Widmark, David Goodis adds up to anything other than a cheap homage. Karina is the star, in colour, and she's gorgeous and you might say that as 'pure cinema', unencumbered by logic or reason, the film actually works but I think you need to be a real Godard aficionado to appreciate it or even to get it. The best thing I can say about it is that it's quite short.

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