2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1970)

You won't be disappointed!

From my favorite movies..

It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

At the beginning of 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her, we see a beautiful woman on the screen and the narrator (Jean-Luc Godard) whispers to us some things that he knows about her: that she is the actress Marina Vlady and that she is looking to the right. And yes, she is Marina Vlady, but in a moment the narrator is whispering again that she is Juliette Jeanson, which is the role Vlady is playing in the film. And yes, she is looking to the right, except that it's our right; she is looking to her left. So immediately Godard has launched us into some conundrums involving actor and role as well as subject and object. Godard will insistently whisper his comments on these and other epistemological questions throughout the film, as we watch Marina/Juliette move through a day in which Juliette takes her daughter to a very strange day care center, has her car washed, buys a dress, meets a friend, and turns a few tricks. We also watch the work at construction sites and contemplate the swirling foam on the surface of a cup of coffee. And throughout we are not only whispered to by Godard, but also hear Juliette's thoughts and the conversation of other characters on the nature and limitations of language and art and philosophy, as well as the psychic disturbance and political significance of the Vietnam War. For some, all this will constitute an hour and a half of pretentious and boring fiddle-faddle, the cinematic equivalent of the philosophical bull sessions we had in our college dorms. But let me hasten to defend the philosophical bull session: It stretched our minds at the right time in our lives, when we had the patience for ideas. Too few of us have the patience for ideas anymore, and that may be an incalculable loss. It's easy to mock films like 2 or 3 Things, to ignore their essential playfulness, their overturning of the complacent expectation that a movie should tell a story or excite or entertain us. But pause to gnaw on some of the some of the things that are said in the film, such as "To say that the limits of language, of my language, are those of the world, of my world, and that in speaking, I limit the world, I end it." Or contemplate the fact that the surface of a stirred cup of coffee looks like the spiraling of a galaxy. Or engage your eyes with cinematographer Raoul Coutard's widescreen compositions. Or question the film's obsession with commercialism, which echoes Andy Warhol's exaltation of soup cans and Brillo boxes into art. Or do anything else that the film prods you to do, including wonder why Juliette leads the life she does, and you've got at the heart of what makes Godard such a radically important filmmaker. (charlesmatthews.blogspot.com)

2 ou 3 choses que je sais d'elle (2 or 3 Things I know About Her) is one of Godard's most fluid and complex narratives, and that is saying much considering the very nature of most of Godard's work. On the surface, the "narrative" (if one were to call it that) concerns a group a middle/upper-middle class Parisian women who prostitute themselves in order to buy consumer goods. Based on a newspaper article Godard read, this "narrative" seems like an interesting point for gender politics.However, "narrative" or gender politics are really not the point of "2 or 3 Things...". First off, "her" is less a person, but a city- Paris. And it is just not Paris, as in the city of romance and art, but De gaulle's radical transformation of Paris from a pre-war city of antiquity to a modern commercial center. The film is framed around extended shots of constructions sites, developing freeways, and cranes for a reason- to show how this ancient city is being radically transformed with or without the benefit of its citizens. In a way, this film is a meditation on a phenomena spreading around the world from the 1990's to the present (and especially the United States)- urban gentrification. In the push to modernize and beautify a city, the powers that be often step on the majority which make up a city- the lower and middle class. Godard's precise comments on urban planning are 40 years ahead of their time. If anything, "2 or 3 Things..." is far more relevant today than in 1967.Secondly, the film is an agit-prop protest against crass commercialism and how it defaces and devoids the human experience. The 2 or 3 women in the film (Paris included) are so wrapped up in the base drive for material goods that they forget the very principles of humanity- love, caring for one's family, intellectual desire, and compassion. Godard's definition of consumerism robs a society of its metaphysical compassion and leads intellectual and personal freedom into a locked room. In the age of I-Pods and Paris Hilton, Godard's sharp criticism of crass consumerism is amazingly relevant. It is a wonder that the Adbusters/Culture jam movement have not latched onto this film with a passion."2 or 3 Things..." also serves as one of the many watermarks of Godard's highly productive and influential 1960's period- blending the emotions of Contempt or Vivre Sa Vie with the chic radicalism of La Chinoise or Week End. Godard was an artist in constant evolution in the 1960's and "2 or 3 Things..." is one of these many evolutionary steps.Be forewarned, "2 or 3 Things..." is NOT a good starting point for those new to Godard. It is far too meditative, "slow", and didactic for one to get a true sense of Godard's radical style. I strongly recommend Masculine-Feminine, Contempt, Breathless, Band of Outsiders, or Week End as a better starting point for Godard. A newcomer to Godard's style might be forever turned off by the slow pacing of "2 or 3 Things...". However, after digesting a few of this great film maker's works, line up "2 or 3 Things...". A timeless and extremely relevant film.

The title is a slightly ironic one; implying the importance of Godard as the film's personal narrator and ably illustrating that the "two or three things he knows about her" are referring not only to the film and the central character, but to Paris itself. It's one of the filmmaker's most difficult and disorientating films, existing within the same creative mindset as Week End (1967) and La Chinoise (1967), but failing to meet that particular level of subversive brilliance. Many of Godard's most obvious hallmarks are still in place, from the notion of society as prostitution, the rise of American consumerism, the state of France in the midst of political upheaval, relationships between men and women, the nature of cinema as a platform for discussion, satire, imagination and ideas, and the appropriation of a larger than life visual design taking in elements of pop art, surrealism, Buñuel and Brecht. However, unlike the similarly minded films aforementioned, 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967) doesn't quite come together as a consistent and cohesive whole, instead seeming somewhat sluggish and anchored to a character that is neither interesting nor particularly well performed.That said; I feel people shouldn't be so quick to dismiss the film, as it features several scenes of bold technical invention, a sharp and biting wit and a real sense of both visual and thematic imagination. It is also a fairly worthy time capsule to the spirit and scope of Paris at this particular time, expressing many of the political fears and social concerns central to most free-thinking Parisians circa 1967. Whereas the two other Politically minded films that Godard produced in 1967 would broaden the thematic scope to create a much more pointed attack on armchair terrorists and bourgeois revolutionaries, "2 or 3 Things" works on a much smaller scale; choosing suburban Paris with its high-rise apartment buildings, shops and service stations as a backdrop that is continually dwarfed by the wheels of industry and industrial repair. At one point Godard says in voice over that "the landscape is like a face", all the while showing how it is continually destroyed, changed and re-developed in a series of repetitive visual metaphors open to a variety of thematic interpretations. Many viewers take these sequences at face value and choose to view the film as a simple, heavy-handed essay on the decline of industry and the rise of Capitalism and subsequently write the film off. However, even though the film takes a great deal of work and may indeed seem boring and heavy-handed, there are deeper themes and ideas that make this a slightly more rewarding work in the long run.Once again, Godard anchors his ideas to the theme of prostitution; recalling elements of Vivre sa Vie (1962) whilst simultaneously foreshadowing certain issues later expressed in Sauve qui peut (la vie) (1980). Like the latter film, Godard implies that with an increasing focus on consumerism and the pursuit of material gain, society is prostituting itself. This is further elaborated upon by Godard's continual focus on product logos and brand names that are inter cut and often re-framed in order to create humorous puns that are probably lost on anyone not entirely familiar with the French language, as well as a final shot that renders the cityscape of suburban Paris as the ultimate consumer paradise. The idea of prostitution also extends to the main character, who here, prostitutes herself in order to break up the monotony of her everyday life, whilst also featuring as a somewhat controversial comment on acting itself (something that is further implied in the opening scene).Like many of Godard's films, "2 or 3 Things" uses a great deal of humour to give the satire a more pointed attack. Much of this humour tends to go over the heads of most viewers, largely as a result of having to read the subtitles or simply missing out on much of Godard's clever use of wordplay and usually ironic puns. Scenes, such as the young boy relating his dream about the unification of North and South Vietnam, or the scene in which Juliet and her friend enact a bizarre, tongue-in-cheek sex game with a foreign war correspondent (who films them with a super 8 camera and looks a little like Godard himself), all the while cutting back and forth to shots of construction and cars entering a service station, being an incredibly bold and rebellious critique in itself. Other sections of the film seem more poetic; almost as if Godard is putting his thoughts on film as he goes along and creating something that is, on the one hand, entirely personal, whilst simultaneously being an obvious piece of satirical agitprop. The two strands don't always sit well together, and too often Godard's ideas seem strained and unformed; especially in comparison with those two other films from 1967, previously mentioned.Obviously many viewers have had problems with the film, and really, your enjoyment of it will depend greatly on how much you trust Godard's instincts as both a satirist and filmmaker, and how willing you are to enter into a dialog with him on a subject that is now resigned to an incredibly brief footnote in 20th century history. For me, the film is undoubtedly one of his more difficult projects and not one that I would place higher than the likes of Le Mepris (1963), Pierrot le fou (1965) or Helas pour moi (1993), etc. However, the scope of Godard's ideas and his way of presenting them visually are close to genius, whilst the occasional moment of imaginative wit, visual poetry or the sheer verve of Godard's film-making abilities make the slow pace and poor performance from Marina Vlady all the more bearable. 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her is worth seeing in the context of both Week End and La Chinoise and is certainly worth experiencing as a double bill with the similarly themed Sauve qui peut (la vie).

I like Godard okay, and I accept that most of his movies are frustrating in some ways. His ALPHAVILLE is one of my favorite films, and I find other works of his like BAND OF OUTSIDERS pleasurable on some level. But 2 OR 3 THINGS I KNOW ABOUT HER has zero entertainment value and, from where I sit, is not really interesting at all. It's little more than endless inane philosophical diatribes, directed either blankly at the camera by the characters or by Godard himself in that intolerable whispering narration. Maybe if you're more open to the prospect of listening to 90 minutes of unexciting deliberation on topics such as the futility of language and subject-object relationships, this will appeal to you. But if you're like most reasonable people, here's 2 or 3 things you could do instead: -See a better movie. The aforementioned Godard pictures would work. Or anything really.-Download some internet porn. Seriously, it will do you much more good.-Write a ticked-off IMDb review even though that's something you never do because you've just watched a movie that angered you so much.