French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard's Le Weekend remains his most consistently relentless attack on the bourgeois values of his own country and the perceived imperialism of the United States. Mireille Darc plays the central character, an "average" woman who is systematically radicalized during a weekend motor trip. No sooner have the woman and her husband (Jean Yanne) embarked on their journey than they become enmeshed in the mother of all traffic jams. The motorists rave, rant, burn, rape, murder,
pillage and even descend into cannibalism -- all of which is treated by Godard as a natural progression of events. The prevalent theory that Jean-Luc Godard had intended Weekend as the apotheosis of his career is bolstered by the film's last two titles: "End of Film." "End of Cinema." ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
This apocalyptic farce-Alice in Wonderland as reconceived by the Marquis de Sade-would mark both the high point and the end of Godard's meteoric career as a popular artist.
Uncompromisingly cynical and completely unforgiving, Week End is a satire so black, you couldn't see hope if it was dancing in front of your eyes carrying sparklers and singing La Marseillaise.
This is Lord of the Flies as played by adults, and for Left Bank intellectuals, heady with righteous protest and wired on too many coffees and cigarettes
There is nothing predictable about Weekend; Godard uses the camera as a radical satirical tool, inserting it up the backside of a society he perceives as lost, constrained and confused. And so are we.
A film that reads itself, tells the viewer what that reading should be, and at the same time tells the viewer that this reading is inaccurate and should be ignored.
Godard pushes his Brechtian didactics to the limit, his exhilarating modernism giving him free rein to draw on Freud, Marx, Lewis Carroll and James Bond.
An unconventional bit of storytelling that I found to be quite enjoyable. Looking at this movie with a preconceived notion of narrative would make this an extremely unpleasant and boring experience. Letting go would be the first thing I would advise someone to do. Given the proper lens, it's a beautiful film. Its
hostility towards traditions are quite interesting. It attacks not only capitalism, but marriage, life, death and compassion.
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