It's a tough lesson to learn that just because an actor one admires is involved in a film doesn't guarantee that it's of the same level of quality as other titles involving that actor. I thought Stacy Martin was outstanding in Lars von Trier's 'Nymphomaniac,' a character drama that I deeply loved. I think she's given fine performances elsewhere, too, even if the film at large didn't impress as much. In this instance it seems to me as though she demonstrates admirable acting where a scene allows her to, but too often filmmaker Michel Hazanavicius is evidently more interested in Martin for her body than for her skill. One might argue that this dovetails into the way that 'Le redoutable' portrays Anne Wiazemsky as rather being sidelined by Jean-Luc Godard during their relationship, secondary to his other interests (including himself), but still there's a question of using Wiazemsky as a set piece more than a character, and Martin more as a pretty face than as an actor, which leads me to think that hypothetical dovetail is an incidental projection rather than smart intent. Sadly, while this is the most readily apparent issue - mistreating a character and their actor in a feature where they are central - it's hardly the only one. I sat to watch this with mixed to high expectations, and frankly, I'm just not impressed.
This title is profoundly unfocused, selecting samples of many flavors but choosing none. Hazanavicius heavily spotlights the protests and revolutionary fervor of May 1968, but it doesn't feel like he does much with it except fuel the tumult of Godard and Wiazemsky's relationship, and of Godard's other personal connections. One would think such tumult is treated with meaningful narrative significance in turn; one would be mistaken, for even "Anne and Jean-Luc" are broadly given meager consideration in a film ostensibly about "Anne and Jean-Luc." It feels like this paints in many colors to mention the hypocrisies of those who champion revolution, the awareness of those hypocrisies, and the difficulties of living within the very system that one wishes to fundamentally change, but these are colors are glossed over rather than trod upon. Similarly, there are kernels of discussion here about the nature of cinema, and what it was, is, and should be, yet while this would be the perfect place to earnestly reflect on what Godard meant to the medium, the topic is treated as lightly and indifferently as everything else in 'Le redoutable.' To that point, while Godard did some very interesting things as a filmmaker, none of them altogether introduced a new paradigm in the way Hazanavicius' Godard is suggesting; I'm reminded of how even Isidore Isou's 'Traité de Bave et d'Éternité,' a Lettrist manifesto of light and sound, stayed well within the bounds of what moviegoers commonly expect, even if he used it in a different way. All this is to say that I'm of two competing minds where this 2017 movie is concerned: either (a) it spends over 100 minutes talking, but it doesn't say anything, or (b) it successfully paints Godard as a bloviating, inarticulate fool, and nothing more.
What thoughtful deliberation this could have represented on any subject is thin and unconvincing. The drama it might have portended, whether of the arc of Wiazemsky and Godard's relationship or of the larger events in the background, mostly isn't rendered with sufficient substance to matter. What blips of comedy this might have offered just don't land except on rare occasion. There are only a handful of moments that actually earn a laugh, clearly having been penned with a comedian's wit; only within the last approximate third are the dramatic beats written and executed with a mindfulness that allow them to resonate. There are fleeting shades of cleverness peppered throughout, but they are deployed almost at random, without any underlying import. There are no examples of such pale apparitions worse than those times when the feature draws on Godard's own tricks from his oeuvre (e.g. Jump cuts, dividing the whole into segments denoted by title cards, using the negative as active footage); such inclusions are plainly empty as they present here.
I think 'Le redoutable' is well made from a technical standpoint, and all those behind the scenes turned in great work. The rest of the cast face much the same struggle as Martin does here, if in other ways, but they make the most that they can of the material. Just as the dramatic aspect of the picture is strengthened in the last stretch, so too are the actors given better material generally, and they show more of their capability as we should have been seeing all along. Unfortunately, scattered as the writing is, the best value the movie can claim mostly comes too little and too late to compensate for the preponderance of the runtime that's both unwieldy and flimsy. In fairness, I'll grant the possibility that I just wasn't in the right mindset when I sat to watch, or maybe I'm just not attuned to the proper wavelength to "get" what Hazanavicius was doing here. All I know is that 'Le redoutable' doesn't sit well with me, overall being too weak, ill-defined, and watered down to amount to much in my estimation. I'm glad for those who get more from this than I did, but as far as I'm concerned this is something that's hard to mention as a recommendation by any measure.
This title is profoundly unfocused, selecting samples of many flavors but choosing none. Hazanavicius heavily spotlights the protests and revolutionary fervor of May 1968, but it doesn't feel like he does much with it except fuel the tumult of Godard and Wiazemsky's relationship, and of Godard's other personal connections. One would think such tumult is treated with meaningful narrative significance in turn; one would be mistaken, for even "Anne and Jean-Luc" are broadly given meager consideration in a film ostensibly about "Anne and Jean-Luc." It feels like this paints in many colors to mention the hypocrisies of those who champion revolution, the awareness of those hypocrisies, and the difficulties of living within the very system that one wishes to fundamentally change, but these are colors are glossed over rather than trod upon. Similarly, there are kernels of discussion here about the nature of cinema, and what it was, is, and should be, yet while this would be the perfect place to earnestly reflect on what Godard meant to the medium, the topic is treated as lightly and indifferently as everything else in 'Le redoutable.' To that point, while Godard did some very interesting things as a filmmaker, none of them altogether introduced a new paradigm in the way Hazanavicius' Godard is suggesting; I'm reminded of how even Isidore Isou's 'Traité de Bave et d'Éternité,' a Lettrist manifesto of light and sound, stayed well within the bounds of what moviegoers commonly expect, even if he used it in a different way. All this is to say that I'm of two competing minds where this 2017 movie is concerned: either (a) it spends over 100 minutes talking, but it doesn't say anything, or (b) it successfully paints Godard as a bloviating, inarticulate fool, and nothing more.
What thoughtful deliberation this could have represented on any subject is thin and unconvincing. The drama it might have portended, whether of the arc of Wiazemsky and Godard's relationship or of the larger events in the background, mostly isn't rendered with sufficient substance to matter. What blips of comedy this might have offered just don't land except on rare occasion. There are only a handful of moments that actually earn a laugh, clearly having been penned with a comedian's wit; only within the last approximate third are the dramatic beats written and executed with a mindfulness that allow them to resonate. There are fleeting shades of cleverness peppered throughout, but they are deployed almost at random, without any underlying import. There are no examples of such pale apparitions worse than those times when the feature draws on Godard's own tricks from his oeuvre (e.g. Jump cuts, dividing the whole into segments denoted by title cards, using the negative as active footage); such inclusions are plainly empty as they present here.
I think 'Le redoutable' is well made from a technical standpoint, and all those behind the scenes turned in great work. The rest of the cast face much the same struggle as Martin does here, if in other ways, but they make the most that they can of the material. Just as the dramatic aspect of the picture is strengthened in the last stretch, so too are the actors given better material generally, and they show more of their capability as we should have been seeing all along. Unfortunately, scattered as the writing is, the best value the movie can claim mostly comes too little and too late to compensate for the preponderance of the runtime that's both unwieldy and flimsy. In fairness, I'll grant the possibility that I just wasn't in the right mindset when I sat to watch, or maybe I'm just not attuned to the proper wavelength to "get" what Hazanavicius was doing here. All I know is that 'Le redoutable' doesn't sit well with me, overall being too weak, ill-defined, and watered down to amount to much in my estimation. I'm glad for those who get more from this than I did, but as far as I'm concerned this is something that's hard to mention as a recommendation by any measure.