Weekend (Jean-Luc Godard)

In the world of Professional boxing, a great boxer is not necessarily the undefeated boxer. A great boxer is one who's winning streak is interrupted by a particular opponent and all faith is lost in the boxer. Fans begin to equate his early success with luck and Critics forecast his demise in the rematch. In the rematch, The great fighter proves to the world why he is great and either brawls it out with the opponent for 12 rounds or humiliates the opponent. In essence, what makes a great boxer great is his character and will not to give up.

In comparison, Jean-Luc Godard is considered one of the great directors because of his contributions to the French New Wave. But like his Boxing counterparts, he was not without failure. His 1967 feature length film "Weekend" was a failure. At times the film with showed promise, but after 12 rounds it failed to deliver.

I must admit, the absurd metaphor of consumer and capitalistic society killing off itself in an endless amount of car accidents is an interesting idea. These scenes were so absurd that they were funny. However, i believe Godard was too experimental in this film and forgot about the basics of story telling. Overall this film is not cohesive. The jump cuts in this film are very harsh and usually seem very random. Furthermore, I feel completeley detatched from the main characters of this film.

This film is similar to Felini's "City of Women." It is a wild Oddessey into a world that is visually similar to our own but drastically different in the characters morals, laws, and ideology. These films show the characters being thrown from one situation to the next. Once they escape one camp of weirdos they run into another. However, Felini's "City of Women" had a clear goal from the start. The character was being put through various test because of his lust and views of females. In a sense, the film was Felini's self evaluation of his own chauvinistic views. In comparison, Godard's political statements are presented to boldly and forcefully in the feature.

This is not meant to be as harsh as it sounds, but one of the best parts of this film is the ending. The ending finalizes Godards statement that modern society will "consume" itself. Almost 10 years later, "Dawn of the Dead" would take this concept and produce a much better film.

For fans of Godard's "Breathless", this film can not be compared to the brillance displayed in the earlier film.