Last Friday, we attended the Nice premiere of the film Le redoutable, the latest work by Michel Hazanavicius (the filmmaker behind The Artist and the OSS 117 series) in the presence of the creator. For us, it was actually a second time because we had already seen and appreciated the film at Cannes in May as part of the Festival where it was in competition.
It’s because, as I wrote back then, we had a good reason to have a special fondness for this film coproduced by our friend and former student Florence Gastaud (the Gastaud family was in full last night around the “patriarch” Jean Pierre).
But beyond friendship, it must be said and repeated that this film, which evokes the artistic and emotional upheavals caused by May ’68 in Godard’s life, is a very good film. A work that makes no concessions but is full of tenderness for the man who, at the height of his fame (Breathless, Contempt, Pierrot le Fou), throws out the baby of his “Nouvelle vague” cinema with the bathwater of “bourgeois” culture. A remarkably endearing Godard.
During this second viewing, free from the slightly stressful context of the Festival, I indeed accessed other levels of reading of the film. Thus, in terms of form, I better identified sequences filmed in the style of… Jean-Luc Godard (references to advertising, contemplative nude scenes in the style of BB in Contempt, style breaks, strong colors, etc.). I also better perceived this strong message from the director about the sometimes tragic impact of May ’68 on some activists, even though Godard—more the man than the director—would recover. Also, the film appeared overall funnier to us than in May.
To such an extent that, in the debate that followed with a relaxed and available Hazanavicius, I asked him if he had changed the film’s editing since Cannes. Not at all, replied the director, who admitted to having been interested for a long time in this question of the viewer being influenced by the context and their state of mind at the time of receiving a work.
In any case, if you like Godard, go see this film. If you don’t like him, go see this film. If you don’t know him, go see this film. For two reasons: the first being that the director promised us last night that in the event of the success of Le Redoutable, he would make a third OSS117. The second is that, without looking like it, it’s an important work not only about a man but also about a generation. And that suits me well: it’s (almost) mine!
Patrick Mottard
