Pierrot Goes Wild

1965 cinematic anarchy

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Completely bored with his own life and appalled by the superficialities of modern society, literature-lover and failed poet Ferninand (not Pierrot) flees town with his children's babysitter Marienne. Marienne, it turns out, is mixed up with a motley crew of gun-runners, and following a murder, the lovers find themselves on the lam. Then, succumbing to peer pressure and the teasing cameras, "Pierrot" repeatedly exposes his wild wild nipples.

This equivalent of cinematic pop art is more than likely the inspiration for all those "Girls Gone Wild" videos. Hockney-esque, Warholish, and Lichtensteinian, Godard borrows from comic books, American film genres (humorously, the crime movie, the road movie, musicals, romantic drama), advertising (dialogue at a party early in the morning is plundered from ads), poetry, and painting and slaps it all together into a freeform stew of cinematic anarchy. The result is wildly chaotic, original and fun, funny and poignant, and frequently beautiful. My favorite scenes: the midget gangster and his eventual demise, the gun-runners' dance scene on a beach, an extended long-shot in Marienne's apartment before they leave town, the numerous non-sequiturs peppering the script (the best being Pierrot's final conversation he has with a stranger about a song), the surreal car accident, the explosive denouement. What at times seems like a guy just dicking around, Godard actually has a lot to say about romantic relationships, language futility, emotions, and the role and possibilities of cinema. I gave this movie a bonus point just because of how good Anna Karina looks. Samuel Fuller, who isn't nearly as cute, has a cameo in this one. At times very similar to Godard's Week-end, but it also reminded me a lot of Jeunet's Amelie. Maybe it's the Frenchness.

Get this head a beret!