‘You speak to me in words and I look at you with feelings...’
Jean-Luc Godard ripped up the cinematic rulebook with his incendiary debut feature Breathless and then continued to redefine what cinema could be throughout an incredibly prolific spell in the early to mid 1960s. Pierrot le Fou utilises many of Godard’s trademark stunts. Looks to camera. Breaking the fourth wall. Cod philosophy. Sex and violence. Choppy editing. A bastardization of Hollywood movies. This film has it all…
Pierrot (Jean-Paul Belmondo essentially reprising his role in Breathless) and Marianne (Anna Karina) are beautiful fugitives on a murderous rampage across France. When not vociferously reading and quoting books or singing to each other, Pierrot and Marianne find time to steal various cars, relentlessly mock a group of American tourists and throw money into the sea. It’s all very French.
Where Breathless is purposefully obtuse and disorientating, Pierrot le Fou is a little more playful. By now, it feels more like Godard is taking the audience with him on this unconventional thrill ride instead of hitting them over the head with it. Breathless is an attack on the senses that is still jarring all these years later. Pierrot le Fou is slightly more accessible, and it is the better film of the two as a result of this. The use of colour allows Godard to showcase his eye for a compelling shot, and he uses it beautifully here. The monologues espoused from our two protagonists are more focused and are often laugh-out-loud funny whilst still retaining the absurdist edge that so enraptured audiences in the first place.
Endlessly quotable, aesthetically elegant and defiantly entertaining, Pierrot le Fou is undoubtedly a Godard masterpiece.