Loin du Vietnam (Far from Vietnam)

You wonder why or how it ever seemed so significant, how a tiny jungle country in southeast Asia could have warranted a prolonged bloodthirsty conflict.

With thousands dying in a hostile land uniformly united to defend their realm, ideology butchered with extreme malignancy to attempt to settle a political rampage.

Loin du Vietnam (Far from Vietnam) packs a ferocious punch as it analyzes the Vietnam War, presenting multiple viewpoints from opposing sides furiously hellbent on polemical destruction.

But I don't see a synthesis here it seems plain and clear the resistance was right, or that those challenging the bellicose authorities were in virtuous possession of infallible conviction.

How could you ever convince someone of ideological agency by aggressively bombing them day and night?, the documentary capturing the ruthless madness that viciously encouraged rampant death and devastation.

Violently disseminating your message pestiferously begets similar responses, an eye for an eye the message still the same, many people will fight if you use violence to persuade them.

And what do you win if you radically subdue them, besides ubiquitous engrained somnambulism, the remarkable thrill of having thoroughly convinced someone worth billions more and much less expensive.

If you proceed with friendship or genuine curiosity to lay the foundations for lucrative trade, diplomatically distilling mutually beneficial matrices things generally improve while many prosper.

Peaceful relations hopefully nurture networks which convivially matriculate as goals are met, infrastructure enabled with longitudinal lattice to efficiently enliven fortuitous fable.

People do often seem to be at odds or indeed rather grumpy from time to time, but cultures which embrace feminine counsel seem to succeed with more byzantine balance.

Like I've said before, a solid mix of the genders has led to fun working experiences, the desire to productively intermingle while taking account of multifaceted interrelations, resonantly producing cohesive outputs, negotiating novelty and tradition.

I was sad to hear Jean-Luc Godard passed this year, he's most certainly one of my favourite directors (he's one of 7 directors who made Loin du Vietnam).

I enjoyed so many of his unique films in my youth.

I'm curious to know where he ended up?! 🤔

*Note: some monogender environments can be fun too, but they're definitely more well-rounded or versatile if there's a mix. 

Still haven't been able to find a Godard Christmas Special. 🎄🎅🤶

Find I'm starting to like Truffaut more than Godard as I age.

Vivre sa vie

The art of presenting freespirited conversation that seems genuinely inspired in rhythm, that isn't mad or crazed or nutso, nor inspired by the master narrative.

I believe they're called sweet nothings even if they're critically articulated beyond romance, motivating neither king nor country, so vivaciously juxtaposed.

Imagine dialogue beyond jurisprudence, without concern for cookie cut expenditures, as if random commentary indeed suffices, depending on mood and role play.

The bizarro theories you might hear at work, a spirited notion betwixt the pines (polarities), observations spontaneously stylizing offhand fleeting rootless import.

Meaning's often so ostentatious, so grandiose, so definitive, so prime, so concerned with cause and effect that it dishevels as it seeks to clarify.

I suppose during times like these serious messages are positive things, delivered from leading figures (Prime Ministers, Premiers, Mayors, Queens), even if they're super intense. The pandemic is super intense and it's nice to see politicians care. Vivre sa vie is for a different time. Even if its ending is rather acidic.

It's a shame she wanted the money and didn't possess greater situational awareness. But that's precisely what makes her so appealing (Anna Karina as Nana Kleinfrankenheim) as she inquisitively coasts through life.

Her comments evocatively disrupt stately bland quotidian decorum, not in a manner that's trite or scandalous, more like light thoughtful curious sleuthing.

Like she's asking questions that haven't been preconditioned to align themselves with historical baggage, beyond categorical boundaries, which practitioners often lament.

Not that the content of such boundaries doesn't change remarkably, but the form often remains the same, as it's characterized by different approaches to high-stakes protracted meaning.

It's nice to meet people who are unfamiliar with the codes and stratagems, their lives like waking dreams, assuming things aren't authoritarian, they're relatively bold and free.

They're appealing im/precisely because they don't make sense, and demand you consider new cogent classifications, to discover what they're trying to say, even if you have to improvise a context.

Don't be dismissive for too long, or that regenerative spark of peculiar novelty may transform into something less captivating, solidifying as time passes.

That's how you expand upon limitations and diversify semantic relevance, if you can't figure it out just chill, it may have already been forgotten.

Imagine books integral to a film that philosophizes as it zines, like a bird as it moves on the ground without flight, not that it doesn't freely soar through unique interactive heights, it just would have been more uplifting without the hardboiled recourse (or the prostitution).

A practical warning nonetheless that blends carefree thought with economic depression.

It could have been so much less drastic.

The library's free of charge.

Had no idea what it was about when I decided to watch it.

Was just another Godard I hadn't seen.

Adieu au langage (Goodbye to Language)

Blessed burnished cinematic, obscurities, stylizing in/coherent poetic exemplars, compartments, of, of symbols fletched with ornamental reliance condoning visualized adherence to vague linguistic polarizers, of; of authoritative intrusions into burgeoning contentments inquisitively dictated like frozen morning dew; of frost and dusty book jackets intertextually precipitating sundry points of view, condensed and ephemeralized with aloof poignancy, crafted in jaded thematic miniature.

Concerned nonetheless.

With the capacity of purpose to historically deflect imaginative horrors subjugating the passions of one's youth.

With engendered protests libidinally interacting to stretch beyond predetermined boundaries and sustain notions of limitless conjugal impunity.

Of joy.

With animalistic contemplative assured responsive discipline, attempts to harangue, roll over, sit, fetch.

For cinema.

For history.

For classics.

If I were to canonize films many of Godard's would be considered.

I do prefer them when their narratives at least attempt to focus on a plot, however, more like narrative critical inquiry than philosophic filmic treatises.

Abstractly entertaining.

Made in U.S.A

It's occasionally important to treat fiction as if it's realistic and truth as if it's fabricated I think. At least that's what they taught me in school. Definitive strikes create signs to which meaning is attached for popularized agendas composed of particular events whose governing narrative forms a general conception. In this way we arrive at the truth and make executive decisions in relation to one of its specific interpretations and its collaborative polemic. Reason is a critical tool for such undertakings as it uses logic to evaluate hypotheses. The metaphorical dimension of collaborative interpretive polemics creates a layer of anti-truth from which the next generation of theories receives their political currency. Thinking about things in generational terms is somewhat of a mistake. Generations within generations germinate contradictory classifications assuming your economy is robust and permissive enough to absorb the fallout.

Jean-Luc Godard's Made in U.S.A terminates the truth with extreme flattery. A long list of manufactured expectations is subverted and traditional associations are disengaged from their cultural nuances apart from the idyllic feminine caricature represented by Paula Nelson (Anna Karina) in love. The Rolling Stones's "As Tear Goes By" reappears like Vinteuil's sonata interrogating the infantilization of the left by taking control of its means of production. An arrow flies throughout attaching itself to various established particularities which it accumulates and flattens through means of the continuous ironical disintegration of black and white agendas (like a long never ending line of aggregated kites establishing an evocative intellectual continuum). Suddenly there's a character, a motivation, a detective, murder. To the left to the right, there's no escape. Could it have been phrased differently? Seemingly random ideas and observations are more intriguing than structural designs when rationally designed according to the rhythms of a coordinated fluctuating poetic cinematic sensibility. Love that dress. May have mixed up the decades a bit in this review.

Sympathy for the Devil

Showcasing The Rolling Stones (1968) as they record different versions of "Sympathy for the Devil," Jean-Luc Godard's Sympathy for the Devil tamely presents the to-be-legendary band while interspersing footage of the Black Panthers, a verdant interview, and an idealistic book shop. Political verse read from different texts is interjected throughout as graffiti artists championing the left take to the streets. Rich with ambiguous irony and multidimensional interpretive layers, Godard phantasmagorically makes several points which, as far as I can tell, seek to establish, amongst other things, a Marxist film industry in the West and a legion of intellectuals who pursue their activity by abandoning traditional paradigms, creating new compelling forms to provocatively distribute their countercultural content, i.e., The Rolling Stones's "Sympathy for the Devil," communism being demonic in Western eyes precisely because it attempts to politicize the teachings of Jesus Christ while giving birth to monsters like Stalin. Are artists using the internet to create a politico-economic infrastructure that can effectively sustain Marxism in order to promote a more peaceful egalitarian culture that doesn't pervert its altruistic ideals while specific outlets continue to foster a divisive mainstream capitalist agenda? In Sympathy for the Devil, Godard sets up culture and art in opposition so the aforementioned could lead to a material synthesis of some kind (a Dharma Punx video game?). The verdant interview depicts a woman named Eve Democracy (Anne Wiazemsky) being asked wide ranging questions in a forest to which she only answers "yes" or "no," which, according to my interpretation, states that 1960s women were politically situated within a wild uncultivated box that limited their productivity to monosyllabic replies which men preferred and ignored because they possessed no elaboration but still provided the illusion of a voice. The Black Panthers make sharp points concerning language and communication etc., notably in regards to semantics and the ways in which different groups can speak the same language and have no idea what the other is trying to say. A lot more could have been illustrated in the film if The Rolling Stones weren't consistently brought back to the forefront, although, since they're one of my favourite bands and their consistent return represents form working hand in hand with content, it's not such a bad thing. Whether or not they forged and continue to forge a countercultural realm in line with Godard's vision could be the anti-intellectual subject of a poetic montage worked into the chorus of a new podcast.

Masculin féminin: 15 faits précis

Answers and questions. Definitions and commitment. Meaning and possibility. Love. Jean-Luc Godard's Masculin féminin situates and interrogates his uncertain conception of Parisian ideology within a diverse realistic quotidian brand of surrealism which effectively simulates a dynamically fluctuating resolution. Practically searching for truths and realizations in accordance with predetermined principles can have a disillusioning affect when trying to place them within one's expectations of an other, based upon interpretations of historical interactions, especially when such principles are being simultaneously synthetically analyzed. But this doesn't prevent Paul (Jean-Pierre Léaud) from continuing to interact with and observe his community as partner Madeleine (Chantal Goya) becomes a pop star. Many scenes are robust, showcasing differing points of view quickly and acutely yet calmly and pensively, while eating breakfast in a café for instance, the actors eating and drinking throughout, like a well-executed preplanned orchestration of randomly improvised daily life, with just enough absurd happenings to make sure it isn't taking itself to seriously. Stop analyzing things and you may have an easier time unless analyzing things makes you happy (assuming happiness is a possibility). Cultural tropes (interviews for pop magazines . . .) are subtly satirized and recast to reelevate their "insert your adjective" recognitions. I have no idea what this film is about. And I used a lot of big words.

Breathless (À bout de souffle)

Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless begins with car thief Michel Poiccard (Jean-Paul Belmondo) declaring that he is no good, which he most certainly is. And it's fun to watch him go about the days events after he rashly commits an act of murder. It's only a film and Poiccard is nothing more than he says that he is.

With no attachments, no responsibilities, no knowledge of cause or effect, Poiccard dipsy-doodles throughout Paris and hooks up with aspiring young writer Patricia Franchini (Jean Seberg). They enjoy each other's company and their innocent sprightly spur of the moment mischievous and for the most part mendacious dialogue consummately untethers a convivial non-committal conversation (between friends of would be lovers). His father was a genius on the clarinet, you can always tell someone's afraid if they fail to light their cigarette, do you prefer my eyes, my lips, or my shoulders?, we're like elephants hiding (not exact quotes). During their dialogue it's tough to imagine Poiccard as a murderer and the ways in which Godard desensationalizes both the act and the criminal accrues myriad deconstructionist dividends. It's obvious Poiccard's time's running out and it's obvious he's oblivious to everything that didn't happen three hours ago. It's not that he can't feel remorse, it's that he can't feel anything that isn't capriciously linked to his existentially disaffected manner. Hence, he's intriguing, for a bit of light-hearted distraction, while the authorities close in, just lean, mean, and on the screen. Faulkner and Dylan Thomas are mentioned. Can't tell if she's a Femme Fatale (it's ironic). And there's an interview with an author who provides perspicacious insights into open-ended culturally popular questions.