Flutterby™! : Nouvelle Vague

Somehow, back in my interest in film years, I'd managed to skip Jean Luc Godard's 1960 film Breathless. We watched it last night, and it felt kind-of of its time socially, but there were things that kept making me go "wow", the use of the camera as active observer, the intimacy of the indoor shots, the breadth and messiness of the outdoor shots which still made every moment count, cuts which felt way more modern.

The subtitles and French made it challenging, and the social aspects of "of its time" left me feeling like I'd watched something of historical importance, but not particularly relevant to modernity.

We watched it as a prelude to watching Nouvelle Vague. As the "Fin" faded from the screen I did a quick search and realized it was on Netflix, which we'd accidentally gotten subscribed to when Charlene went to watch an older episode of The Way Home and Google misdirected her, and our subscription ended... today, as it turns out.

So, back to back, we watched Richard Linklater's comedy/drama about the making of Breathless. Also in black and white, and in French, with subtitles, and...

Nouvelle Vague is genius. The casting worked amazingly well. The film tells enough in action and leaves enough space for the subtitles to work. It carries the frenetic improvised feel of Breathless while being clear that the entire film had to be meticulously plotted and planned to tell exactly that story with, I assume, an amazing amount of effects and set work, especially given the budget.

Much like Breathless, the film both is and isn't about its primary plot, and it lets those personal evolutions be told through small beats.

Anyway, we loved it.