ALPHAVILLE, UNE ETRANGE AVENTURE DE LEMMY CAUTION (Alphaville, A Strange Adventure of Lemmy Caution, or Tarzan Vs. IBM, 1965) *** Some people think that Jean-Luc Godard films things the way he does (the decidedly non-cliché fight and chase scenes, for example) because he doesn't know how to do it right. They probably also believe that he has his spy/protagonist inquire as to the well-being of Dick Tracy because he can't think of anyone else to ask about. Godard's buckshot approach to random trivilalities and reticent synchronisms runs more subjective than most, but it works for me. All of the clever winks of tale and technique, hundreds and not random, almost all of them score in some minor way. They don't, however, for me, build and multiply in an exponential or geometric progression as they do in his very best work. The triviality of auto-language, dictatorship of probability, irony of a future that looks like here and now, Paul Misraki's musical jokes,the liquid nature of language, and the inherent observation that technology is squeezing out our most important emotions are all put forth effectively, but the most sweeping and moving commentary is an unspeakeable one involving light. Perhaps to Godard this dwarfs the others, who said he isn't radical? Godard's neo-cabalic epiphanies are expressed in ultimate measure across the face of Anna Karina.
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