The feminine pronoun in the title of this film from Jean-Luc Godard refers to both a French housewife and the city of Paris, as each are changed in fundamental ways by the growth of consumer culture in Europe. Juliette Janson (Marina Vlady) lives with her husband and two children in a high-rise apartment block in Paris. Juliette and her family used to live in a working class community on the outskirts of town, but they've been drawn into the city in search of a higher standard of living,
reflected in their new home and their desire for more of the latest consumer goods. Juliette's husband can barely support the household on his salary, so she taken to working as a prostitute without his knowledge to help pay the bills. Deux ou Trois Choses Que Je Sais d'Elle (aka 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her) follows Juliette over the course of a seemingly ordinary day as she looks after the kids, takes care of her husband and plies her trade when she has the chance. Shot simultaneously with Made In U.S.A., 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her found Godard moving away from his fascination with American genre cinema while exploring radical politics and alternatives to conventional narrative frameworks; it proved to be one of his last films to reach a large audience in theaters. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
Two or Three Things I Know About Her is one of the most beautiful films of the young Jean-Luc Godard, a great French cineaste, poet and frustrated lover.
Based on a series of magazine articles, the movie was made around the time Godard abandoned conventional narrative almost entirely for what he dubbed the cinematic essay.
Despite an aura of wistfulness, and a certain power that accrues from the disjunction between the story of a vulnerable, life-hardened woman, the chaotic collision of sound and image, and the ham-handed political lessons, this film never moves me.
Raoul Coutard's Techniscope cinematography contemplates an espresso, filling the screen in monumental close-up with a rotating vortex of bubbles and foam.
It's a vexing film that teases with sex and serves up radical politics. But it has extraordinary alchemical powers, turning the most ordinary environment -- a young couple's suburban flat -- into a minefield of ideas.
This is unashamedly intellectual, discursive, noodling film-making, a cinema of ideas, conceived in a language that is demanding, but not totally opaque.
In 2 or 3 things I know about her, the 'Her' refers to Paris. For me, this is the ultimate Jean-Luc Godard film. You can generally categorise his films into 3 types; Political, social and 'anti'. Sure they all overlap but this one incorporates all aspects, the camera techniques, the acting styles etc, all that are used
very differently depending on what kind of film he's making. It's hard to explain but this probably isn't a great starting point if you are new to Godard's films. I have to say, for a director I find either big hit or complete miss, I rather liked it. It's another rehash of sorts, he made quite a few but this one is different, it's a little bit like a greatest hits. It also works as a historical and social document of Paris at the time. Commercialism and Urban Inequality are explored through the philosophies of a prostitute. It may seem that Godard has a thing for prostitutes but what he's trying to say is that you have/had to prostitute yourself in many ways to live in that society. In the words of The Pop Group, "We are all prostitutes!"
a film about, well, everything. by being about everything the film wasnt really about anything until the very end when it revealed a message that was fairly profound. although the film possessed many of the artistic signatures of godard, his normal storytelling and dialogue emphasis was missing. as a plot driven
film it might have been powerful, as a documentary it might have been interesting, as sort of a hybrid of the two it felt more like disconnected and random sequences providing short and limited commentary on various cultural issues. in the end two issues hit home and are finally presented clearly, consumerism and manotany, they are presented with bias, but the commentary is worth attention. in the end, godard might have accomplished a certain task, but the film fell mostly empty.
January 23, 2010
danny d
Super Reviewer
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