Oh, Woe Is Me (1993) Reviews

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since it was directed by Jean-Luc Godard and since it was available on Netflix, I thought I might as well check it out. A couple of weeks ago, I already saw ‘Détective’ from the same director and I thought it was incredibly indecipherable but this movie turned out to be even more challenging though. At some point, it seemed that God took over Gérard Depardieu’s character’s body over but how everything else was connected with this? Was there actually any connection at all? Another detail that stroke me was the fact that, pretty much like in ‘Détective’, there were so many young girls involved but, when you think about it, the fact that I focused so much on such a detail might be actually more revealing about me than about Godard himself. Anyway, as usual with Godard, even though his approach to reject the standard cinematic narrative conventions can be so frustrating and hardly entertaining at all, it is still pretty bold with each one of his movies. On top of that, in this case, I have to admit that the end-result was actually quite poetic and it reminded me of the work of Terrence Malick and Andrei Tarkovsky. Of course, if you would compare it to Malicks movies, it was visually not so ambitious and, yet, there were something appealing about Godard’s static shots. Concerning Gérard Depardieu, I think it was the first (and only?) time he would be working with this director and it was quite satisfying to see this French actor tackling such challenging material instead of chasing another paycheck gig. Anyway, to conclude, even if this movie was really difficult to read, it was still an interesting watch and I think it is worth a look, at least, if you like the genre or if you are interested in Jean-Luc Godard’s work.