TWO OR THREE THINGS KNOW ABOUT HER I Movie Review

Deux ou Trois Choses Que Je Sais d'Elle

In the labyrinthine, assaultive, spectacular, and constantly evolving Paris of 1966, a housewife (Marina Vlady) turns to prostitution when day-to-day expenses of life in the big city become overwhelming. The 24 hours that Jean-Luc Godard's film covers is presented like a continuing dream state of motion, space, and images, in which the movie's two stars, Vlady and Paris (each being the “her” of the title), circle around each other and become completely interdependent, like some science fiction, Demon Seed—ish notion of a human fused with the glass-and-steel structures around her. At what point have individuals—and cities—irretrievably sold their souls? It's a question Godard poses with the aid of stunning widescreen color images by the legendary cinematographer Raoul Coutard. Experimental, endlessly witty, and still absolutely fresh, this is in its way as impressionistic and poetic a vision of a living metropolis as Dziga Vertov's The Man with the Movie Camera.

NEXT STOP … Pierrot le Fou, Alphaville, Playtime

1966 95m/C FR Marina Vlady, Anny Duperey, Roger Montsoret, Jean Narboni, Raoul Levy; D: Jean-Luc Godard; W: Jean-Luc Godard; C: Raoul Coutard. VHS NYF