Masculin Féminin (2006)

Absolutely the worst movie.

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

This movie is about an opportunist seeking the approval of armchair revolutionaries. The story is about the director slash film writer JL Godard and the public is expected to be sucked in the disjointed stories presented on screen. And the final product is a working product which gave the opportunist a boost in image.Pick any star of today you dislike. Someone liked by the masses but disliked by you. Godard is the same shallow thing, only for the Marxists for whom he sang.This is a masculine ode, of course, given the name. A catholic revival story. And to make things more revolutionary you have the exploitation of images like Coca Cola or the Vietnam war. Which was started by the French. What makes Godard disgusting is that he knew of Vietnam, he knew of all the colonial wars, he knew about Algeria and how a decade before the police has drowned hundreds of peaceful Algerians in the Seine, yet he needs to point out his spineless resistance against the US. Which makes him yet another proud cultural icon serving the power.Contact me with Questions, Comments or Suggestions ryitfork @ bitmail.ch

In 1960s' France, when there is rebellion against every reigning doctrine inside the mind of youth culture; Godard particularizes the downgrading of youth in different cases. Honored with Silver Berlin Bear for his influential leading part, Jean-Pierre Leaud symbolizes French New Wave with playing a captious character by means of critical attitudes. So wisely, Godard doesn't force the story to describe this leading character. Instead he let his leading actor become the viewer. Of every moment at all the scenes Godard puts us in his shoes. When we start laughing at an ironic situation, he became the one who is making fun of the person in the irony. When we start feeling bored of a conversation, he became the one disturbing the talkers. When we start getting confused of the happenings, he came to create his own scene.Not only leading the script, the story and the other actors; Jean- Pierre Leaud also leads us to be part of his daily life, to realize his ambitions. Step by step he charms Madeleine with asking dead-end questions and helping her finding the impossible answers. Even though Madeleine ideally never liked him, she found herself pregnant and realized he has become the one that will share her fate in a little while. You would be impressed how fabulously, Paul convinces Madeleine and her roommate to share the same house, same room and to sleep in the same bed altogether. If this has been Bernardo Bertolucci's "The Dreamers" you wouldn't be amazed that much.Masculin Feminin is a conversation-based movie of philosophy and youth sociology and has the governing idea that even with the feminism women still are under the sway of masculinity. It's centering on masculinity. There is also a hidden analogy here that; as socialism being nothing but a rebellion to the eyes of democracy, so is feminism being nothing but a rebellion to the eyes of a man's self-knowledge. The character profiles are very well sculptured. It inspires confidence over the impossible-to-understand woman characteristics. Yet, for me the best issue is that the story-telling is very confusing, out-of-order; so that it's not really down-to-earth at all.

It's strange this movie has not a single French comment.More than any Godard movie (I must confess I'm not a Godard fan,by a long shot),this one depicts a world now gone ,the world of the French sixties youth ,of the "Mademoiselle Age Tendre" magazine ,the world where a "pop" singer Chantal Goya used to sing "Si Tu Gagnes Au flipper" ("Should you win if you play pinball,then you've lost my heart ,'cause I know you've dated my best friend" exciting huh?).Every year the trendy girls used to elect their "Mademoiselle Age Tendre" and the winner had tons of presents and had the privilege of dining with Johnny Hallyday,Françoise Hardy and other "pop" stars of the era.Godard shows one of the lucky recipients and for once he displays some humor.Abortion and suicide did not exist in the sixties youth world they (magazines and radios) built for them,but in Godard's flick,they loom in the background.The director makes a tricky use of the words "féminin" and "fin".It's Marlene Jobert's first important part.You had to be here ,I guess.For people who did not live in France in the sixties ,it is an honest time capsule

Masculine Feminin is my favorite Godard movie! Chantal Goya's Ye-Ye score gives the movie an incredibly youthful freshness. The innocent naiveté of Ye-Ye is presented as an oxymoron in a French culture being deluged by Pop Culture and consumer materialism. Paul prefers classical music and despite his Marxism has fairly traditional sexual values. France lost its innocence with this movie. While I would call this movie tame by our our celeb sex tape standards, France restricted access to this movie to those over 18. Some interesting sexual / bisexual stuff that is subversively alluded to. The Swedish sex film (a mise-en-abîme) and the homosexual kiss in the cinema bathroom are self-explanatory. (The later echoes James Baldwin's opening in Another Country.) Godard can didactically beats it over your head - witness his prescient comments on the American involvement in Vietnam, yet in the same movie he can be remarkably subtle. Did Paul commit suicide or was it an accident? What is Madeline's relationship with Elizabeth? Godard chronicles France in transition from the hegemony of the Catholic ethos to the student uprising, which would occur in 1968.It is ironic when you consider the national trauma of the NAZI invasion and the Gallic intellectual cynicism; however, the Beatles and the Sexual Revolution seems to have come later to France. Individualism and consumerism overcoming a group mentality whether Godard's Marxism or the mainstream Catholic Church. Odd Paradox when you consider the traditional association of the French with libertines. Hmm....Léaud later said he trembled when he did the bathroom scene with Goya. Goya wouldn't do a nude shower scene even behind a frosted glass. (BB is wonderful eye candy in Mepris if that is what you want.) While Masculin Femin is cavalier about prostitution, it is deeply engaged in the structural transformation occurring in France in how men and women define their sexual roles.I'm not a movie critic but I enjoyed watching and re-watching this movie. I think it is a more entertaining movie than Breathless or Contempt from the fun perspective. Jean-Paul Belmondo defines cool in the same way as Marcello Mastroianni in La Dolce vita but I'm talking about how a movie can go beyond style and talk about human relationships. On a superficial note, BB is nice in Mepris but as an incurable romantic I'm still drooling over Miss Elsa Leroy's fuzzy sweater in M/F.I think when Godard later becomes more experimental and didactic he loses his mainstream audience. I am one of that mainstream audience and that is truly my loss. :(