A Woman Is a Woman (2003)

Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Absolutely brilliant

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

A WOMAN IS A WOMAN is a comedy drama. That is a visual magic, which is colored with a crazy romance, incomprehensible feelings and a pleasant music.The main protagonists are exotic dancer Angéla and her lover Émile. The story is mainly based on their crazy relationship. She wants to have a child, but he isn't ready. Émile's best friend Alfred also says he loves Angéla and he is waiting for his chance. Since Émile stubbornly refuses her request for a child, Angéla finally decides to accept Alfred's plea and sleeps with him...This is another experiment directed by Mr. Godard. An intimate pleasure and a girlish caprice have agitated frisky youthful spirits. An explosion of colors and sounds is in contrast to the poverty and penury in this film. The story has some elements of a musical comedy, but it basically boils down to a drunken farce. A dance, songs, inappropriate jokes, a bit of nudity and sexual charge reflect the youthful freedom to somewhat ironic way.Anna Karina as Angela Récamier is a lively and playful girl, who can not control her emotions and her growing desire for a child. She is an ordinary girl who behaves like a star, and finally becomes just a woman.Jean-Claude Brialy as Émile, her lover, is a quite crazed, perhaps on a verge of despair. A very serious life decision for a young man, has eventually become a part of the general burlesque. Jean-Paul Belmondo as Alfred Lubitsch is a lover from a shadow, who is trying to prove his love for Angela. His methods are quite interesting. What can I say ... it is Belmondo.This is a frivolous joke, which in the background provokes serious topics.

A French striptease artist (Anna Karina) is desperate to become a mother. When her reluctant boyfriend (Jean-Claude Brialy) suggests his best friend (Jean-Paul Belmondo) to impregnate her, feelings become complicated when she accepts.Godard declared this triangle "an excellent subject for a comedy à la Lubitsch" and, in fact, the Belmondo character is named Alfred Lubitsch, which is no subtle tip of the hat. This is Lubitsch with an eccentric French touch.Only the third of Godard's films (he made many, many more), it is not really my favorite by a long shot. It has some of the quirkiness of his other films (especially early on when the music seems to be completely unaware of the movie). But it just never really hits home for me.

Plot summary: Anna Karina sings and strips and wants a child. Her boyfriend Jean-Claude Brialy doesn't. Their friend Jean-Paul Belmondo is willing to impregnate Anna, and so Jean-Claude Brialy changes his mind and decides to do the job. The end.Review: After three tries, I simply cannot watch this whole movie. The musical outbursts are so frequent, meaningless and LOUD, I got tired of taking my headphones off and putting them back on every few seconds.And as another review said: This isn't a comedy, it's not a musical, it's not a drama, it's . . . well, it's kind of nothing. A very loud nothing.

A Woman is a Woman is certainly Godard's most accessible work if you've never seen one of his films. Unfortunately for the rest of us, Godard's 1961 effort leaves the viewer yearning for the taste of his better work. That's not to say that "A Woman is a Woman" is a waste of time. The performances of Anna Karina, Jean-Claude Braily and Jean-Paul Belmondo are never less than fun to watch, and Godard genuinely seemed to have a good time teasing his audience by playing simple tricks, which include blasting an old fashioned score only to arbitrarily cut it out moments later. The score helps the film become a sort of pseudo- musical in which even the fights between the Karina character and Braily's become a sort of staged production. Scenes in which the two lovers insult each other by holding up book titles as well as a few glimpses of his master touch, keep this motorboat from stalling. On the other hand...It could be because he shot the film with only a loose outline and not a full script, or it could be that with all his references to Francois Truffaut's "Shoot the Piano Player,"Burt Lancaster and his own work, M. Godard is a little high on himself. Those references mean nothing to what's happening in the film and are intended to be amusing winks and nudges to the audience, most will enjoy this, others will feel their eyes starting to roll. When all is said and done, this film is the closest thing to "commercial" as Godard gets. The scenes in which Belmondo and Karina begin imitating each other seem like something out of a musical, and yet no one breaks out into song. The music is used instead to emphasize what is happening on screen, so much so that it comes off as less of an homage to the musical, but rather a satirical sucker punch. The music is so bombastic at times that it trivializes what they are arguing about, making the tiff between the two lovers seem almost unimportant. In fact, it makes what they're discussing quite comical. Initially, Godard does seem interested in exploring actions taken in relationships. Unlike, say, most American films about relationships, there doesn't seem to be a discussion of any of the people's moral character. Godard seems focused on how people act, not necessarily why. Love, is a human emotion that can't be explained, but what people do when they're in love can be filmed. It's frustrating that Godard didn't delve into this theme any deeper instead of concentrating on style...as stylish as it is. The film isn't for some, even most people. And although it has it's flaws, no one should be discouraged from watching A Woman is a Woman.