Pierrot le Fou Review

When director Jean-Luc Godard sets out to make a movie, he isn't just embarking on a quest to create a motion picture. No, he's going on a journey to fiddle around with the conventional structures of the storytelling medium his works inhabit. He's out to find new ways to convey time passages or inner thoughts and to explore groundbreaking editing techniques that are still looked as landmark achievements decades after their release. If one were carrying a desire to see his specific traits as a filmmaker in action, look no further than his 1965 effort Pierrot le Fou, a prime example of these recurring practices of his.

Based on a 1962 Lionel White novel called Obsession, Pierrot le Fou is the tale of Ferdinand Griffon (Jean-Paul Belmondo), a guy stuck in a rut of a marriage and who just doesn't care for the high society life he finds himself existing in. If he seeks some more excitement, well, he's about to get it, in the form of Marianne Renoir (Anna Karina), a lady who brings him into a world of crime and espionage, which leads the two to go off and live a life of isolation. The duo find themselves careening wildly around in terms of how they feel about each other; sometimes they're madly in love, other times they can't stand the sight of each other.

However, they feel, Jean-Luc Godard has a camera ready to roll to chronicle their ups and downs as a couple living on the lam. It is quite interesting to see the two leads spar against one and another, since Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina bounce off each other in a natural manner. Whenever one of these two leads has a barb for the other, you can be sure that other person will spring right back with a retort that their actor delivers in a sublime manner. It's also difficult to ignore the directly contrasting societal roles both characters represent, with Ferdinand being a product of higher society and Marianne being the radical rebellious youth type that was rampant in the 1960's amidst events like Woodstock and Vietnam protests.

All the while these two go about their romantic odyssey, you get the sort of unorthodox filmmaking choices that have defined Jean-Luc Godard's career. Frequently, voice-over narration punctuates certain scenes to help establish the mood while there's also a recurring trick of having various pieces of art flash across the screen to further accentuate a specific kind of ambiance. You also have Ferdinand and Marianne shattering the illusion of the fourth wall by occasionally talking directly to the viewer like they're in a Muppet or Deadpool movie, something that is apparently a frequent fixture of Godard's entire career.

I'd be lying if I said every single example of these avant-garde choices worked for me (a handful of them left me initially bamboozled more than anything else) but even the weaker choices do elicit a notable reaction from myself, a demonstration of just how fully-formed and invested I had become in the two leads and their plight. The occasions where these choices of editing or directing don't quite work still show a remarkable level of guts in exploring such different avenues of storytelling. Luckily, much of these unconventional choices Godard dabbles in do manage to leave an impression in the best way possible and show the glorious results of what happens when truly swing for the fences artistically.

Pierrot le Fou is also shot in many exotic European locales, which further add to the visually stunning nature of the pieces. I could just watch footage of simply people roaming these beautiful foreign lands for hours on end, they're so lovely to look at. It's a fitting backdrop for what's essentially a breezy romantic caper movie filtered through Jean-Luc Godard's idiosyncratic visual sensibilities. For those looking for a chance to see what exactly separates Jean-Luc Godard from the pack as a filmmaker, or if you're just searching for a strong piece of cinema, then totally give Pierrot le Fou a go.