A classic

To be honest, it has been a while since I have seen this movie. Furthermore, I have to admit that I always had some rather mixed feelings about Jean-Luc Godard. Indeed, I really loved ‘À bout de souffle’ and, after all these years, it is still one of my all-time favorites movies. Unfortunately, everything he has done afterwards has been increasingly difficult to watch and his work became at some point pretty much unwatchable. This movie is a fine example. Indeed, it was made only a few years after ‘À bout de souffle’, it was Godard’s first and only attempt at making a big budget production, even working with Brigitte Bardot, one of the biggest stars in the world at the time, and there was definitely something mesmerizing about the movie . And, yet, I thought the whole thing was rather bleak, cynical and you could argue that ‘Contempt’ was not only the title of this movie but also what Godard felt about his American backers, about Brigitte Bardot, about the whole world in general for requiring him to make such production beneath his standards. That’s the whole point with this movie and Godard’s work in general: it’s so obscure that you can pretty much reach anything and nothing in the subtext. To conclude, I’m not huge fan of this flick (Godard himself apparently hated it or at least hated making it) but it still definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

7/10