NYFF Review: Notre Musique

Notre Musique, the latest bit of cinematic poetry from Jean-Luc Godard, is a philosophical treatise on war that examines the various conflicting forces that have time and again led us to battle. Structured as a Dantean triptych (made up of the three "kingdoms" of Hell, Purgatory and Heaven), it's a film that, although containing a narrative, is more akin to Godard's political works from the 70's. One key difference, however, is that it is ultimately a very optimistic film, even when one considers its bleak subject matter.

The first kingdom, Hell, is a ten-minute montage of war scenes, sourced from both documentary and Hollywood footage (including Apocalypse Now and Kiss Me Deadly). Shown without sound (other than some tinkly piano music and a few lines of narration) it is broken up into four sections -- battle footage, war technology, victims of war, and images of Sarajevo during the war -- in preparation for the second kingdom, Purgatory.

Making up the bulk of the film (about an hour), the Purgatory section is set in current-day Sarajevo. A group of people (both real and fictional) has been invited to attend a Literary Encounters conference, including JLG himself, who has been asked to speak to students about text and image. (Other real participants include the poet Mahmoud Darwish, writer Juan Goytisolo, and architect Gilles Pequeux.) World War II, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and even the fate of Native Americans since the time of Columbus are discussed (the latter in a powerful sequence shot in the ruins of the Sarajevo Public Library). It is in this section that we also meet Olga (Nade Dieu), a Jewish Israeli who carries a tremendous amount of guilt with her about the situation in her country.

Many of the characters in this section speak about conflicting forces that have been around since time immemorial -- vanquished and victor, darkness and light, activists and storytellers etc. Godard, in his speech to the students, applies it to a cinematic reference -- shot and reverse shot -- and provides an amusing, but applicable, anecdote about Howard Hawks.

The film ends with the third kingdom, Heaven, which is depicted as a lush green forest guarded by US Marines. (In a Le Monde interview, Godard claims he got the idea from the final lines of the The Marines' Hymn, adding, "The Americans want to have everything.") The heaven of Notre Musique is full of young people having a good time, including a young man reading David Goodis' Street of No Return (which is also Sam Fuller's final film). Naturally, heaven for Godard could not exist without at least one film reference.

Notre Musique has been met with a fair amount of controversy. As Girish pointed out (see comments), fellow filmmaker Chantal Akerman denounced Godard as an anti-Semite at the Toronto Film Festival. Filmbrain is a bit surprised by her rather knee-jerk reaction. True, the film does draw a parallel between the Holocaust and the Palestinian exile as a result of the Middle East conflict, but that hardly results in automatic anti-Semitism. Godard, the self-proclaimed "Jew of the cinema" expresses surprise that nobody has already drawn that parallel. He adds:

And when I do that, I'm not thinking about it, I do it like a scientist bringing elements together. People would rather talk about something than really look at it. What I'm saying is, let's look at the images. I would rather look [first], then talk about it afterwards.

Godard insists that the film is optimistic, and the Sarajevo setting can be seen a metaphor for the various global political/social reconstruction efforts that he believes are still possible. A challenging, thought provoking work that almost allows Filmbrain to forgive JLG for his attack on Michael Moore and Fahrenheit 9/11 (without even having seen the film.) Obviously, no Godard fan should miss this one.

Notre Musique screens at the New York Film Festival on Oct 3 @ 4:15PM and Oct 4 @ 9:00PM and is being released by Wellspring later this year.

Comments

[Mikko Pihkoluoma]

I saw Notre Musique back in June about a month after its premiere in Cannes (- yeah, shameless bragging!). Alain Bergala was visiting the Midnight Sun Film Festival (www.msfilmfestival.fi), and gave an introduction to Godard's film. He set it up by talking about Godard's (wealthy Swiss) family background and his waking up to political reality. I'm not that well-versed in Godard, but I think it might have happened around Pierrot le fou which I saw the following day as part of Bergala's Master Class (shamelessly ripped off from Cannes I presume).

Bergala spent some time discussing that you will find two women in the film: one of them constantly doing things, being active, and one of them talking, being passive. I don't know if this was merely a methodological observation (I don't know if that's the right word, but something to learn "how to read a film"...), because in Pierrot le fou -which has countless connections with Notre musique, such as suicide, same type of rifles, U.S. navy outfits, hell and paradise are both being mentioned in Pierrot le fou...- you have Anna Karina with her need for music, action, activity, dancing, and Belmondo's passive intellect, reading, writing...

Anyway, my rambling comment seems to be suggesting that, at least for me, seeing Notre musique and Pierrot le fou right next to each other, marked an interesting comparison. Godard's early comment on "the bigger picture" of political reality (the Vietnam sequences in Pierrot le fou), and his current obsession towards it (I'm making this sound negative, although I don't really mean that).

(...loved your review, btw. Keep them coming... Tropical malady? Although I guess I shouldn't count on your word because I found Blissfully Yours beautiful.)

[FIlmbrain]

Great, great story (and observation) Mikko -- thanks for sharing.

I'll certainly be re-looking at Pierrot le Fou as a result.

The use of conflicting forces in Notre Musique is so pronounced, it must be something central to JLG's current way of thinking. (The comment in the film about Homer writing about war because he could never experience it was priceless.)