One of the great masterpieces of the 20th century, a supreme synthesis of form, content and performance. Arguably the most beautiful too, with its found locations, sets, colour, lighting, music, decor and costume. The straightforward elegance of Godard's shooting masks a story of great complexity and formal rupture, but underneath the philosophy, semiotics and allusion is a portrait of marriage and its decline. The tension between icy irony and resigned emotion results in Godard's most perversely moving film. It is also very funny, which is too little remembered.
Review of Contempt
