Weekend (1967) Review

1967 saw the release of Bonnie and Clyde a movie that Jean-Luc Godard was offered the chance to direct. He turned it down and made his own subverted road movie. Weekend is as pure as a movie you can get. He's stripped it down to the bare essentials. So to replace what he had taken away Godard brought his trademark style of his 1960s movies.

Like most of Godard's work at the time, it's drenched with literally and film references such as The Searchers, Battleship Potemkin, Story of the Eye and Animal Farm (more on Animal Farm and Marx latter). There are also several literary pieces that were made reference to, of which I become aware of when watching an essay on the film from the special features. Godard trusts the audience to know what he is doing, a trust that is rarely found not only among his contemporaries but the entirety of cinema. Even before coming aware of what Godard was doing I could still feel a strong sense of trust.

At the beginning of the film a plot is something we have to wait for as it develops rather than being presented to us like children, something of which Godard can do for whole features now. When we fully realise what is happening we learn that a bourgeois couple take a drive into the country side which turns into a nightmare of car accidents, odd encounters, revolution and cannibalism.

The couple are played by Mireille Darc and Jean Yanne (Corinne Durand and Roland Durand, respectively). Earlier I said that the couple are a member of the French bourgeois, here they are almost the 'stereotypical' member of the upper class. There characters are always infatuated with proving their superiority. This often happens after their car crash and when they look for help. Every person they come across are treated as lower than them. Even before their car crash this is shown in two main scenes. The first being when Jean Yanne's character accidentally reverses into someone else's car and he tries to flee but a kid prevents this from happening. The other being the famous 9 minute long take that reportedly used all the dolly track of a certain model in France. The take is long pan shot of traffic jam in the French country side. As the camera pans we get an insight into french life, one that subtly fits the tone of the movie, but the Durand couple drive around the traffic jam on the wrong side of the road.

After the car crash we follow the couple through a series of vignettes that all involve class struggle. Godard presents this differently in each scene as to keep us thinking and so he doesn't bore us. The story from about 30 minutes into the movie doesn't move much outside of changing the vignette until about 20-30 minutes to go. Godard has essentially stripped down the movie to examine French life rather then present us a story of the typical bad vs evil. These vignettes are meant to make us feel unconformable. Often the movie will carefully break the fourth wall (but not do it at the same time), some characters look at the camera and therefore the audience. The movies tells us what to do in ways that have never really be done before and something that only cinema can do.

Darc and Yanne bring great performances into the movie but Godard never worked with them again, which suggests a dissatisfaction with them, why? I don't know. Also in not one but two minor roles in the movie is Jean-Pierre Léaud who brings in another great new-wave performance.

Godard is a director who specialises in artifice, you can watch some of his stuff and see nothing unusual for it (for a Godard movie at least) and it isn't until re-watching or someone points something out to you that you come to acknowledge the ingenious directing of Godard.

One of the main themes of Weekend is the way Godard presents Communism. The Cold War was at its height in the 1960s and it led to a fear of Communism across the capitalist world. Here he presents a disgust for Capitalism which comes as no surprise as at least two of his recent movies (at the time) deal with this theme and even his second movie made dealt with political issues. There are too many scenes to lay my claim about this as each one does it so well, but if I had to choose one it would be when the couple are sitting with two workers while they have lunch, each one then explains their (for each other) stance on class and use a real world example to make their point.

The political themes of Godard aren't a surprise, especially when you see his involvement with the events of May 1968 in Paris and across France (which also lead to the early finish of the Cannes Film Festival.

The black humor in this movie is to really shine a light on the middle class of France. Who Godard presents as people who have lead themselves from the kind who stand up for to the consumerism class the bourgeois want them to be and that they are more gluttonous than what they should be. No other movie has presented the middle working class in this way and it really makes this movie an unique and memorable one.

This movie is one that you wont sit down to have a laugh or an adventure but rather one that will lead you down the rabbit hole into something deeper. The movie may be a snap shot of 1960s Europe and in particular France, but if you choose but if want this movie can still be relevant today.

Overall Score: 10/10

What did you think of this movie if you have seen it? Did it make you want to rebel against society?

This movie isn't available in a region 1 format so I hired it from Film Club Sydney (filmclubsydney.com) and it's the Criterion edition of the movie which comes with some great supplements but you need to be able to play region 1 DVDs.

Director: Jean-Luc Godard

Writer: Jean-Luc Godard

Starring: Mireille Darc and Jean Yanne

Cinematography: Raoul Coutard

Editor: Agnès Guillemot

Music/Score: Antoine Duhamel

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