Crotchety 80-year-old Jean-Luc Godard has said that “Film Socialisme” marks the end of his controversial career, which in 1960 first gained attention with “Breathless.”
That was his first feature (after three shorts), and his most accessible effort to date. You would be hard-pressed to use the word “accessible” to describe “Film Socialisme,” and that’s exactly the way the master wants it.
Most of the non-action takes place aboard a luxury Mediterranean cruise. (Patti Smith is one of the passengers!)
Shot mostly on video, the film often looks like a collection of fuzzy home movies haphazardly spliced together.
You slowly realize that almost all of the cruisegoers are white, and most of the workers are black or Asian. Hey, Godard’s making a point about class warfare.
Dialogue is awkwardly translated in what Godard calls “Navajo subtitles.” (“AIDS tool forkilling blacks.”)
Animals (birds, cats, llamas) have occasional cameos. The ship stops for a time in the south of France, where — in a parable about the decline of European civilization — conservative parents vie with liberal offspring at the family’s gas station.
Toward the end, Godard throws Sergei Eisenstein’s 1925 film “Battleship Potemkin” into the mix. The abstract yet mesmerizing proceedings end with the words “NO COMMENT.”
And so goes the world according to Godard.