•
Rating: “ Only the mime sings at the edge of the woods “
A lazy moon had instantly decided to shroud all surrounding matter in darkness.
The only exception was her face, never so irradiated by those reflections,
the crater now had perfect cheekbones
and the sublime cut of Natacha Von Braun/Anna Karina's eyes.
A lone rider, with that rough expression on his face, his inseparable trench coat, that wise patience in understanding the oddities of others
- I’m too old to start arguing, so I shoot-
aka Eddy Constantinetin aka “ Secret Agent Lemmy Caution “,
whose irresistible B-Movie actor charm and his ever deeper wrinkles, by the moon's reflection, might perhaps have a faint chance to resurrect once again the muses Conscience and Sensibility even in the most remote dystopia…
Alphaville (Or Paris 1965)
No, we are not on the dystopian channel of “Playtime “ (1967 Jacques Tati); here the raw tonality of Parisian architecture, exalted by the absence of light and shadows that seemed to swallow even the cold breath of the night, offered a dark satire of the anxious risks of globalization.
Even before “ Playtime “ could instead provide a soothing preview of our days, of that concave slice of the universe seen from a chaise longue, where any other view seems so distant, so far and alien, as to be confined to the nearest available Area 51.
The mild-mannered Spofforth had just plunged headfirst from the 41st floor, but his software hadn’t programmed suicide among the possible events, as even for an android one can be too old to live and too young to die.
How distant, sidereally, can Genius be from the speculations of society, literature, and mainstreaming, can we say that Godard's thought can be easily ascribable to a terrestrial and wavering reasoning motion?
Perhaps an enigmatic answer could easily be found by randomly citing one of his films to decidedly say – Goodbye to language -
We can say, seeing this Godard film, that to civilly resist and survive even the dullest technocracy, we might ultimately rely exclusively on our most latent Genius. Submerged yet inherently ultimately tied to our universally varied, diverse,
genetics, and lastly to the Beauty and Courage of Antigone's gesture.
Hi Mary Lou, here, have a peanut today too.
Alphaville (II) 1965
Paris, already a leading light and imagined beloved destination of the nouvelle vague and the exploits of Jules & Jim, with the great constructions of public and modernist building, from the “ Defense “ to the new Unesco headquarters, was the ideal cradle of Godard's visual technocracy.
Why toil to create a false modernism when the present already offers a vicious preview of the future, tirelessly filming with the crew at sunset in the new and elegant suburbs of the Parisian business districts, which in recent years had marvelously fused into De Gaulle's Paris.
And the entire work in itself stylistically projects into the future with the lens of modernariato, of that nostalgia seared into the flesh with the burning flame of memory.
And so it is that Eddie Constantine/Lemmy Caution, the agent emerged from the outer lands to save his Natacha/Euridice from an apathetic present, is a character filtered from the 1953 film “Fbi Criminal Division”, where he portrayed the same irascible character.
That Ford Galaxie of his, with which he first bursts into the frigid Alphaville, is obviously a Ford Mustang that had just passed the dealership's threshold.
The Golem of the city, the dark Alpha 60 system that imposed extreme totalitarianism in the city and banned any emotion in its inhabitants, is depicted in the amusing interviews with Lemmy as a Nordik fan with a disturbing voice borrowed directly from an Ardennes war veteran who had suffered an actual and irreversible vocal cord damage.
But then, do we really want to believe that the soul of the film resides in this retro-dystopia, undeniably fascinating in its nocturnal narrative and in that cameo of gloomy reflections, on today's & classic dichotomies of Caution – Safety and the progressive and sad epilogue of a catatonic state in which “nothing is ever understood until one night you end up dying”.
In the pursuit of human truth, in the will to resist and transmit the authentic knowledge of things and feelings, lies Godard's encrypted response to the context and the dictatorship of emotions, passing down the history of man, his intimate experience, and the dissolving power of Poetry the underground mission of the man/agent Lemmy.
In the text of “ Capitale du Doleur “ by Paul Eluard, which an exhausted colleague and agent Dickson hands over to Lemmy before dying, that message of hope is conveyed, that desperate act of love that Godard dedicates to his ex-wife Anna Karina, that sweet poetry that unconsciously wants to be once again a fire capable of melting Natacha’s tear-streaked heart, bathing those eyes just outlined by a black charcoal line inside the eyelids.
And it is precisely that text which is the foundation of Everything, that novel passed stealthily from hand to hand, that word-of-mouth of lost conscience stranded in the arid human depths yet still alive, vital, and free to corrupt every fortunate holder towards liberty and the freedom of one's own emotions.
Passing down passion, from Jean Luc to Anna, from Paul to Gala, to Salvador, from poetry to painting, a magical circle, pivot of life and humanity, our silences, our words, from the necessity to know I saw the night create the day, further and further says hate, closer and closer says love, with a caress we emerge from our childhood, the heart has only one mouth, all things at random, all things said without thinking, or drifting feelings.
And that night, in that escape from Alphaville, from everyone and towards the Unknown aboard the Ford Galaxie in the company of Natasha/Anna/Euridice liberated to the beauty of the Moon, man's only hope, stripped of social and cinematic superstructures, rests solely upon her lips and in the feeling of saying,
in that dark car cabin
“I love you”, the curve of your eyes around my heart, wheels a dance and sweetness motion, aureola of time, nocturnal and faithful ark.
Loading comments slowly
