Breathless

1960 stream-of-conscious crime drama

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A sociopath named Laszlo and Michel rolls into Paris following the theft of a motor vehicle and subsequent offing of a police officer and undoubtedly some other things. That's how the dude rolls. He contacts an American girlfriend, a woman who is damn near cute as a button, and tries to find a way to get her to first sleep with him and second flee with him to Rome where he might be able to sleep with her again and again. Detectives are in hot pursuit, a fact to which Michel seems nearly oblivious. Then, as seen on the poster, he gets shot in the back.

Godard's first film is interesting in a lot of ways. There's a freeform trouncing across the genre in that typically Godardesque way. There's the protagonist (whose arrogance and sly humor are reminiscent of the guy in Man Bites Dog) and his offbeat mannerisms, his misplaced desperation and often perplexing motivation, and his way of breaking the fourth wall and addressing the audience. Of course, you know he's doomed from the start, but you enjoy watching his destruction unfold anyway. There's a quiet junk-poetic tension that the action of the movie jerks along. The cinematography, a stumbling handheld camera work, and a jazzy score contribute. And I always like movies that break the rules. There's a subtle madness I like about Breathless. Breezy and hip.