The Image Book

You can very well like Godard, and "Goodbye to Language" and still find this absolutely pretentious and meaningless. To me, in this "work" ( or "book" if you want to call it, it's definitely not a "movie") the substance does not justify the framework. I looked at my watch trying to figure out how much longer I'd have to sit through, and realized we're 9 minutes into the movie! NINE!!! I left the theatre after 40 minutes realizing I can find better things to do in the next 45 minutes.

This is a video essay that feels like a window into the precious collection of a videophile. Living legend, french director Jean-Luc Godard stamps here his mastery with his recurring topics and concerns. Very violent images dance with an adventurous collage of fine visual material, a result of a long time journey. I think the outcome is unbeatable and enjoyable if you are looking for new structures, like a jazz freestyle solo but with images and poetry instead of notes. It's a story about tragedy, revolution, the Arabic world, east vs west types of understandings and life itself.

If you feel like watching it do it, but be prepare to face an unorthodox editing, sound level surprises, non causal argument and beautiful images of a tragic reality, the reality of humans and its imaginary.

Complex, very complex, different, very different, many images, few sounds, a lot to say in few words, film clippings, reports, animations, war, pain, suffering, sometimes disconnected, but always very intense... First work by Jean-Luc Godard that I watch, and I started with the most subjective, profound and strange... "The world is not interested in Arabs and Muslims, while Islam has political attention." Is about. That, about generalization, about Islamophobia, generalization, xenophobia, wanting to silence a nation...

This film is not for everybody, so if you dislike it, it's okay. But for me, this is really the best film I have ever seen. And I've seen Felini, Tarkovsky, Antonioni, Bertolucci, Haneke and many other great filmmakers. But GODARD IS THE GOD OF MONTAGE. Sometimes I even forget that he's 88 years old. I just can't imagine how the hell he does these kind of things at his age. This is my first review in Imdb. I just got registered, so I can write a review on this film, because everybody was complaining about how bad it was. I just realized I don't even have words to review. Sorry. This is it. At least I can tell you that you need to watch this before you die.

I've seen a lot of weird movies. But this is too weird for me. Maybe a few years, or a few more bizarre movies, will lead me to appreciate this one. Right now it's not gonna happen. I give it a 5, simply because I found it aesthetically pleasing, and it seems like something I could like.