Le Petit Soldat Reviews

To be honest, I have never heard of this flick before but since I have a weak spot for Jean-Luc Godard’s work, I still wanted to check it out. It is definitely one of his more obscure efforts (on the other hand, 80% of his work could be described as obscure. Anyway…). In fact, Godard was done with this movie already in 1960 and it was supposed to be his 2nd directing effort just after ‘A bout de souffle’ but it was pushed back for 3 years because of the censorship. Even though I’m a huge fan of ‘A bout de souffle’, I always had some issue with the other movies directed by Godard and this flick was not an exception. I mean, there was something quite mesmerizing about the whole thing but it was also terribly alienating and very often, frankly quite boring. I mean, even if I’m very interested in politics and find it a fascinating subject, I found it really difficult to get into this flick because nothing is said in a straightforward manner, everything is more or less implied, if Godard implied anything at all. Still, this movie was really intriguing. It was after all the first time Godard worked with Anna Karenina, a really mesmerizing actress , and they would make many more together. To conclude, even though it is nothing great and doesn’t belong to the French master’s best efforts, I still think it is worth a look though, especially if you are interested in Jean-Luc Godard’s work.