I think Godard is one of the most overrated filmmakers of all time, and 'Pierrot Le Fou' has got to rank the same way in the echelons of film. But it has some pretty interesting stuff going on for it, even for an above-average casual viewer.
The problem is a lot of people go into a film like this and expect a typical plot and narration. A lot of Godard movies have no plot, and here it this is taken to the extreme. I mean, you can piece one together, but it's not particularly coherent or important to the characters and scenes. The plot here is off-screen almost the entire time, and we are subjected to a vast amount of improvised, random, and ridiculously cheesy, funny and pretentious scenes and exchanges between Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina.
This movie works for a party atmosphere, or if you are really, really good at making fun of movies. It was one of the first movies which attempted to interact with the audience instead of being a separate art subject. I don't know how successful it is at doing so, but there are a variety of scenes which are unbelievably amusing and in of themselves are fantastic clips.
If you go in expecting this film to be a typical film noir or something coherent and easy to follow, you will hate it. But if you know that it's going to be a long string of off-the-wall scenes that are at once funny, stupid, self-aware and amusing (and often translated poorly) then you might enjoy yourself.
Five out of ten, because it is both utterly awful and stupid and yet really, really entertaining and charming in retrospect. Just make sure you warn whoever you view it with!
The problem is a lot of people go into a film like this and expect a typical plot and narration. A lot of Godard movies have no plot, and here it this is taken to the extreme. I mean, you can piece one together, but it's not particularly coherent or important to the characters and scenes. The plot here is off-screen almost the entire time, and we are subjected to a vast amount of improvised, random, and ridiculously cheesy, funny and pretentious scenes and exchanges between Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina.
This movie works for a party atmosphere, or if you are really, really good at making fun of movies. It was one of the first movies which attempted to interact with the audience instead of being a separate art subject. I don't know how successful it is at doing so, but there are a variety of scenes which are unbelievably amusing and in of themselves are fantastic clips.
If you go in expecting this film to be a typical film noir or something coherent and easy to follow, you will hate it. But if you know that it's going to be a long string of off-the-wall scenes that are at once funny, stupid, self-aware and amusing (and often translated poorly) then you might enjoy yourself.
Five out of ten, because it is both utterly awful and stupid and yet really, really entertaining and charming in retrospect. Just make sure you warn whoever you view it with!