With captions like "18 Lessons On The Industrial Society",
Godard signalled his ever-growing politicisation and disregard for
conventional cinematic goals like storytelling or entertainment.
Vietnam and Brecht are all over this fragmented film, at once an essay on
Paris, prostitution, and a 20th Century history that encompasses
Godard's hopes for what it might yet become. "Listening to the
commercials, I forget Hiroshima, Auschwitz," whispers the
voiceover; "I forget everything except that I'm back at zero and
have to start from there." Given that this statement follows one
of cinema's most mind-expanding shots - the froth of a coffee cup
swirling like the birth of a new galaxy - perhaps that's not such a bad
place to be.
