Recommended. Twenty-six years after the passing of 1984, is it meaningful to call any movie Orwellian? If you reference a vast, right- or left-wing conspiracy controlling all human thought, I suppose it’s pretty dumb. However, that’s not Jean Luc Godard’s dystopia in Alphaville. In 1965 and 2010, the self-destruction of individuality and feeling seems more threatening, even to a loopy Marxist, as we invent new technology that simulates, but does not replace, intimacy (like movie blogs). After all, Alphaville is not ruled, its programmed. As he did many times, Godard fronts pop culture as a malevolent, deadening force, effectively resisted only by instinctual brutes like his protagonist Lemmy Caution. The noir/futurist plot of the story is minimalist, boring if that’s important to you. And we have the usual beeps, random violence and circular dialogue of le mise en Godard. If you can get past all that, this is a great film.
Post a comment
Your Information
(Name and email address are required. Email address will not be displayed with the comment.)
Comments