After 13 years spent in the wilderness of Marxist cine-verite' political commentary, the infant terrible of the French New Wave movement Jean-Luc Godard made a much-touted return to mainstream film-making with SAUVE QUI PEUT (LA VIE) aka EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF (in the U.S.) and SLOW MOTION (in the U.K.) and, for this occasion, the director chose to collaborate with eminent screenwriter Jean-Claude Carriere. The result is one of Godard's better latter-day works but, having now caught up with his successive work (apparently also featuring the uncredited hand of Carriere) PASSION, I find myself once again bewildered; while his next few films – FIRST NAME: CARMEN (1983), DETECTIVE (1985) and HAIL, MARY (1986) – once again show a marginal improvement, by all accounts he would again alienate much of his audiences with the remainder of his filmography, of which I am only familiar with the equally frustrating NOUVELLE VAGUE (1990).
Apart from the aforementioned Carriere, PASSION also reunited Godard with Raoul Coutard (although Vittorio Storaro had actually been his first choice) – director and cinematographer had not worked together since their 1960s heyday (more precisely on Godard's surreal road movie masterpiece WEEK-END {1967}) – as well as actors Isabelle Huppert (from SLOW MOTION, where she had played a prostitute) and Michel Piccoli (from CONTEMPT, where he had been a cuckolded screenwriter). The latter film would make a telling comparison with PASSION since they both deal with the world of international movie-making but, while the earlier example did not sacrifice entertainment value when expressing its intellectual integrity, the same cannot be said of the film under review! In fact, the film-within-a-film being shot here seeks, for no particular reason, to recreate some famous tableaux on celluloid underscored by an operatic soundtrack...but, never having been too much of a fan of paintings or opera, regarding them as highbrow artistic mediums, PASSION becomes a pretentious ride to nowhere (Poland notwithstanding)! Indeed, exiled Polish film-maker Jerzy Radziwilowicz decides to head back home at the very end and both Hanna Schygulla and Isabelle Huppert decide to join him on a whim.
The film's Polish director seems more interested in (and distracted by) the two stars (Schygulla plays a hotel owner who is factory owner Piccoli's mistress and Huppert a rebellious factory worker) than in getting anything shot; in a way, I can relate to his inertia since these past two weeks I have not gotten much 'work' done because of a trio of female friends I have been in contact with! Besides, Jerzy is forever complaining of the inadequacy of "Mr. Coutard"'s lighting; amusingly, everybody appearing in the film plays a character with a similar first name as the actor playing him! Ultimately, however, for all the film's intermittent (and frankly slight) amusements (Piccoli has an annoyingly consistent cough, a penchant for roses, and is made to dodge one persistent creditor throughout the film), the sheer fact that female 'actresses' on the set do nothing but pose and shed their clothing for gratuitous full-frontal nudity at times makes the film seem uncomfortably like a highbrow Tinto Brass effort or a lowbrow Peter Greenaway one!
The film was included in Lionsgate 3-Disc Set of Godard films along with FIRST NAME: CARMEN, DETECTIVE and OH, WOE IS ME (1993); like its predecessor, Godard shot a featurette on the making of his current film but, unfortunately, it has not been included in the enclosed supplements and this is one of the reasons why I opted to obtain the film from ulterior sources. Despite my reservations, PASSION was up for the Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival (where it competed against eventual co-winner Costa-Gavras' MISSING, Lindsay Anderson's BRITANNIA HOSPITAL, Werner Herzog's FITZCARRALDO, Wim Wenders' HAMMETT, Michelangelo Antonioni's IDENTIFICATION OF A WOMAN, Jerzy Skolimowski's MOONLIGHTING, The Taviani Brothers' THE NIGHT OF THE SHOOTING STARS {1981} and Ettore Scola's LA NUIT DE VARENNES and, ironically, won a prize for Coutard!) and nominated for a couple of Cesar awards (where it competed against the Carriere-scripted DANTON and THE RETURN OF MARTIN GUERRE!).
Apart from the aforementioned Carriere, PASSION also reunited Godard with Raoul Coutard (although Vittorio Storaro had actually been his first choice) – director and cinematographer had not worked together since their 1960s heyday (more precisely on Godard's surreal road movie masterpiece WEEK-END {1967}) – as well as actors Isabelle Huppert (from SLOW MOTION, where she had played a prostitute) and Michel Piccoli (from CONTEMPT, where he had been a cuckolded screenwriter). The latter film would make a telling comparison with PASSION since they both deal with the world of international movie-making but, while the earlier example did not sacrifice entertainment value when expressing its intellectual integrity, the same cannot be said of the film under review! In fact, the film-within-a-film being shot here seeks, for no particular reason, to recreate some famous tableaux on celluloid underscored by an operatic soundtrack...but, never having been too much of a fan of paintings or opera, regarding them as highbrow artistic mediums, PASSION becomes a pretentious ride to nowhere (Poland notwithstanding)! Indeed, exiled Polish film-maker Jerzy Radziwilowicz decides to head back home at the very end and both Hanna Schygulla and Isabelle Huppert decide to join him on a whim.
The film's Polish director seems more interested in (and distracted by) the two stars (Schygulla plays a hotel owner who is factory owner Piccoli's mistress and Huppert a rebellious factory worker) than in getting anything shot; in a way, I can relate to his inertia since these past two weeks I have not gotten much 'work' done because of a trio of female friends I have been in contact with! Besides, Jerzy is forever complaining of the inadequacy of "Mr. Coutard"'s lighting; amusingly, everybody appearing in the film plays a character with a similar first name as the actor playing him! Ultimately, however, for all the film's intermittent (and frankly slight) amusements (Piccoli has an annoyingly consistent cough, a penchant for roses, and is made to dodge one persistent creditor throughout the film), the sheer fact that female 'actresses' on the set do nothing but pose and shed their clothing for gratuitous full-frontal nudity at times makes the film seem uncomfortably like a highbrow Tinto Brass effort or a lowbrow Peter Greenaway one!
The film was included in Lionsgate 3-Disc Set of Godard films along with FIRST NAME: CARMEN, DETECTIVE and OH, WOE IS ME (1993); like its predecessor, Godard shot a featurette on the making of his current film but, unfortunately, it has not been included in the enclosed supplements and this is one of the reasons why I opted to obtain the film from ulterior sources. Despite my reservations, PASSION was up for the Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival (where it competed against eventual co-winner Costa-Gavras' MISSING, Lindsay Anderson's BRITANNIA HOSPITAL, Werner Herzog's FITZCARRALDO, Wim Wenders' HAMMETT, Michelangelo Antonioni's IDENTIFICATION OF A WOMAN, Jerzy Skolimowski's MOONLIGHTING, The Taviani Brothers' THE NIGHT OF THE SHOOTING STARS {1981} and Ettore Scola's LA NUIT DE VARENNES and, ironically, won a prize for Coutard!) and nominated for a couple of Cesar awards (where it competed against the Carriere-scripted DANTON and THE RETURN OF MARTIN GUERRE!).