Numéro deux

This was Godard's first film after the Dziga Vertov collaborations of the late sixties and early seventies,and his last feature film for five years.It can be seen as poised uncertainly between the analytical agitprop of the Vertov period and the more accessible films of the eighties which were his return to commercial film making.Its radical innovation which is at once striking and deeply unsettling for the average viewer is his use of split screen for most of the running length. The film tells of a youngish couple who live a seemingly conventional family life with their two young children and his mother and father,but beneath the facade of normality there runs a relentless deconstruction of the sexual power play of married life,the boredom and frustration of the wife and the alienation of the husband trapped in an exploitative job.An extremely pessimistic and very difficult film to watch.