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There are movies to help you relax on a Saturday night and there are movies that stimulate, even if that means asking questions that have no answers. I didn't understand this movie but I still felt stimulated by its questions. I tried so hard to make the connections and I had a lot of trouble. But you don't read Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man once without discussing it and expect to understand it. Nor is the more accessible Three Colors Trilogy meant to be seen only once for complete understanding. The quality of a movie is not determined by its accessibility. It's a limited understanding of the medium to judge film by its accessibility. It can be more than an easy way to relax. It can be the impetus to dialogue. I cared about this movie because I didn't understand it.

I first saw Notre Musique at the NY film festival, and responded to it strongly because it was, after going through a slew of his more recent work of the 80s and 90s (often hit or miss, more miss), a very well structured, interesting picture with a very distinct look and feel that balanced the elegiac and darkness with some light. Watching it again, I'm still fascinated most by the first segment 'Hell'. If this was just a stand-alone short film, I would rank it among some of Godard's best work from the 60s. It's brash, it's seemingly unending, the narration actually does fit the images on screen (which, from my perspective, is what ends up usually irking me with some of Godard's later work when he does this), and all of these images of civilization decaying through war and other disasters, and the machinery and technology used for all of this death and horror, really works to a great effect.

Purgatory, the second segment, is often quite good, as it's a really well-balanced mix of fiction and documentary as real life writers and professors and journalists go through issues like Sarajevo, troubles in the middle east, and cinema itself as Godard humorously and sometimes somberly goes through a lecture to some students as he's part of the setting. There's even a perfectly understated, interested performance by the lead Sarah Adler. When the film then transforms into the last act, Paradise, it kind of starts to break some of the power and interest in the previous sections of the film (I didn't really connect with much of the symbolism, as beautifully photographed as it all was). But what ends up really impressing me most about Notre Musique is that I really could understand most, if not all, of what many of these long stretches of dialog were about- unlike in some past, notoriously messy films by the director- and it worked without Godard's way of filming subjects and locations. Julien Hirsch's cinematography, going through the director's vision, is often so striking I'd say it's some of the best that was done in 2004 anywhere.

There's still some kind of documentarian's spirit at heart, and it really does work best in the conversations that go on in the film, as lots of subject matter gets covered. This mixed with a partially fictionalized story helps to make something pretty special, if not really sensational, and in its 80 minute running time nothing overstays its welcome. If anything, the film is almost too short by a few minutes. It's a mix of history, politics, poetry, cinema, and the meanings of life and death, and not often does it come off pretentious.

I've just come back from the cinema and it's raining very hard. But there's the sun, too, which is going down behind the mountains. It's very poetic. But not nearly as poetic as Jean Luc Godard's last film, "Notre Musique".

The movie is divided into three kingdoms: 1 - Enfer, 2 - Purgatoire and 3 - Paradis. The first part of the movie consists in a collage of various war images and situations accompanied by a wonderful music. Some very clever sentences are said off screen, too. "Death can be seen in two different ways: as the possible of the impossible or as the impossible of the possible". The second part shows us the crossed stories of some peoples meeting in Sarajevo for the Book Weeks: J. L. Godard himself, a young Israeli Journalist, a Palestinian and a Spanish poets, A young Hebrew girl with Russian origins, a Hebrew translator with Egyptian origins, some American natives, some natives of Sarajevo and other people speak about their experiences, they wishes, war, peace, poetry, history, life, death, cinema, reconciliation. J.L. Godard gives a lecture to some cinema students and shows them photographs. The third part takes place in paradise and shows us a girl who has been killed in a cinema by Israeli snipers who suspected her of being a terrorist ready to kill herself. She had a red bag with her and people thought it contained a bomb. In fact there were just books in it. The girl wanders near a river and encounters an American marine. Some boys are playing and reading books. Paradise is fenced and guarded by U.S. military forces.

This movie is truly amazing. In fact it is not just a film, it is poetry. In moments like these when cinema industry is dominated by fast, brainless, action-packed movies, it is a real pleasure and mind-freeing experience to see something that beautiful and poetic. This was presented this year in Cannes and didn't get much attention if I remember right. A journalist of "Le Nouvel Observateur" who usually gives very good advices, this time got it wrong saying that "Notre Musique" is a senile work. Not at all. It's the work of a director who has only improved with years and who has reached total serenity and great wisdom. This film does not give you ready-made, simple answers to common questions, it gives you some points which are incredibly interesting to develop and think about. Sarajevo is the ideal place where peoples, histories and cultures mix and sometimes sadly clash. When the young girl is asked "Why Sarajevo?" the touching answer she gives is "Because Palestine. I come from Tel Aviv and wanted to see a place where people can get along in harmony". There's so much to think about this movie. And everything is filmed so well, so limpidly, with such a mastery, you can't stop staring at the screen. "Godard is the only film director in the world" (Freddy Buache)

Godard's status as a filmmaker, and an auteur, cannot be challenged. He no longer needs to make a name for himself and is free (within reason) to pursue the projects he likes, and carry them out to his own satisfaction. He also has an enormous and varied body of work 'under his belt', along with the experience that this has brought. And yet, these facts do not seem to have made him complacent. No one could accuse him of 'going commercial', and though the new Godard is 'nicer' than the strident, know-it-all politician of his Maoist period, he can't be accused of slowing down.

This film is a case in point. Within in, one finds so much going on, so many ideas, and at such a pace, that it really needs multiple viewings. At 75 minutes, it flies by. It is hard, therefore, to cover all the issues raised by the film, but I will try to give a summary of my impressions.

The film follows a basic triptych structure named according to the rather Catholic names of Hell, Purgatory and Heaven. Parts 1 and 3 act like short wings to the hour-long centrepiece.

In a brutal first 10 minutes, appropriately called 'Hell', one is confronted with a mix of images of war from film and from war footage. Personally, I've always found documentary footage of war, however grainy or poorly shot, much more troubling than the most violent parts of acted film (such as Saving Private Ryan). Is Godard pushing the two together (implying moral responsibility of the filmmaker), or contrasting them through montage? (Suggesting the dual aspects of film-making, which he will emphasise later in the film, when comparing Israelis, who have become a film, to the Palestinians, who have become a documentary.) Like the rest of the film, it is a brilliantly edited tour-de-force of images and ideas.

The second section, Purgatory, consists largely of discussions between writers and journalists drawn to Sarajevo for a literary conference. The number of questions (though not answers) that bubble to the surface in these discussions is astounding. Citations (a Godardian standard) are given new meaning through editing / montage. And many more eminently quotable lines are added by Godard and the other participants, literary figures playing themselves, such as Mahmoud Darwish, whose analysis is original and perceptive, and Juan Goytisolo. This section has a documentary feel, but an artist's aesthetic. The film itself looks superb, demonstrating a real eye for shot composition. This makes his films 'surface' extremely watchable, even before the 'substance' is broached. The substance is tasty too, with a superabundance of wit on parade, not in the sense of trite humour, but real insight, combined with a sober sigh before the unchangeable.

The last 'movement' is of course 'Heaven', which is amusingly guarded by US marines, and looks a little like the less-than-heavenly site in which the end of Godard's 'Weekend' was played out. This playfulness and self-referentiality was typical of the rest of the film also, for example, in the trio of vocal Native Americans reminiscent of characters in 'Sympathy for the Devil'. Where does quotation end and creation begin? Godard's work is full of citation and self-allusion, but due to the (specifically filmic) nature of montage and narrative context, these citations and allusions take on new meanings.

The film is, therefore, certainly elitist, as are so many great films (and novels for that matter). 'Notre Musique' demands a cine-literate viewer, and preferably also familiar with Godard, since there is a lot of meaningful and playful self-referentiality. (One could also argue that someone new to this kind of film-making might be challenged to improve their cine-literacy). More importantly, it demands an alert viewer, because there is potentially much more happening than merely what is on the screen. Godard, in examining filmic space has also created a space between screen and viewer, making him or her an active part of the process of meaning-making.

Certainly, if all films were of this caliber, one would get a sore head thinking them through, but it is important to be enlivened by such a work as this from time to time, just to remember film's artistic and intellectual potential.

This is not entertainment...

I'd seen Contempt (1963) and Breathless (1960) many years ago and thoroughly enjoyed both. After 1964, I sort missed all that he directed until now, which appeared on late-night TV. And no wonder it was on so late at night...

It seems that, as many of us get older and maybe wiser, we like to expound on things philosophical. Bergman did it well, and without resorting to didactic circularity or confusion – and still managed to tell a good story. Woody Allen uses satire brilliantly for the same purpose.

However, Godard here uses the bare bones of a simple, quasi-documentary style story – and one that it episodically fractured and with much symbolism – to reflect upon 'what it all means': that is, life, death and the whole damn thing. Using the current Israeli problem with Palestine and vice-versa, he explores the three concepts of Hell, Purgatory and Heaven, using each to show what humanity has done, what it's doing and where it should be going, respectively.

The first, Hell, is obvious: with a montage of cuts from a multitude of news and film clips, Godard shows us the extent to which we prey upon each other even as we pray for each other. So, there are some real – all too real – scenes of the dead, the dying and the executed during the many wars that have been documented during the last hundred years or so. Nothing new here at all...

The second, Purgatory (a place for waiting), is – well – an exposition about waiting: waiting for a bus, for a train, for a plane, for a meeting to start, for a bridge to be rebuilt, for a nation to recover from war, for people to begin to understand each other. And this is all done within the thin framework of the story of Olga (Nade Dieu), the Jewish journalist from Tel Aviv who is attending a lecture by Godard (playing himself) in Sarajevo, and who is trying to understand why human problems cannot seem to be resolved, no matter what. Significantly, by choosing just Olga, Godard has certainly brought his philosophy to a very personal level, and one with which we can all identify, more or less.

All of that is rendered moot when Olga appears to commit an unspeakable act when she returns to Tel Aviv. Perhaps Godard should have told her that it's not the end that matters but the journey to achieve that end?

The third – the shortest vignette – is our final destination: as a prisoner of Nature, complete with - American! - border guards who let Olga through to join the happy throng. Essentially: strip off civilization and return to our basics to find out who we really are...

I think I'll stick with tackling prejudice, reducing global warming and trying to make a positive difference rather than taking Olga's choice.

It's well filmed, as you'd expect from Godard; the music is, at times, quite beautiful to hear; and the Sarajevo mise-en-scene is a stark reminder of our collective sins. An annoying aspect for me, however, is that not all dialog was translated and subtitled; perhaps it wasn't necessary?

So, while interesting visually and aurally, I'd recommend this only for those who like to reflect upon existential problems within philosophy.