Lovesusti
The Worst Film Ever
BroadcastChic
Excellent, a Must See
InformationRap
This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.
Claire Dunne
One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.
osmangokturk
Godard's protagonists carry cigarettes in their hand or mouths and are careless roamers, La chinoise is not an exception.Small red books are everywhere. the book shelves are full of it, and the revolutionary students are reading passages out of it. Godard, throughout the film bores audience by reading the passages from these books to convince people that these proverbial sentences are nothing but boresome youth time killer political clichés. Since no one expect Godard to lecture us through a film, the important thing is the overall story. Students are romantising the revolution and politics. The movie contains many references to the then political and ideological events in the world. Godard very frankly and childishly narrate the revolutionary students movements. They are at the end students, living in student quartiers and eating bread and tartiner. This is a film about childish aspect of revolutionary student movements. In the movie there are a lot of scenes that need to be connected..
tcorgat
Godard's La Chinoise is truly a remarkable and utterly unique film. This one and Week end are both the highlights of his progression from his earlier new wave, Hollywood inspired films, to more experimental and avant-garde ones. For those interested in good stories and plot this one will be a bore. For those that are also interested in good directing, camera shots, angles, long takes, brilliant cinematography (man the red colours), minimalism, cool editing of both sound and picture, La Chinoise is exactly what they want.It's very important to be familiar with the time period (late sixties), in both culture and politics. And of course, with communism, especially Maoism. Now some people may think of this film as an "ode to communism", while others may say that it's more like tongue-in-cheek. Whatever it may be, the film is simply brilliant.What we have is bunch of young people in an apartment, reading books, quoting Mao, having discussions, presentations and witty dialogue, about loads of subjects such as: Love, Vietnam war, Communism, capitalism, language, terrorism, knowledge, etc. That is the whole plot of the film, but the film language here is much more deep and rich, as mentioned before.My rating is pure 10/10.
rotildao
Well, it is a great Goddard. Touches in a subject that is presently seen in Brasil. The fall of the so called "political last hope", the left wing. What the french and Chinese felt 30 or 40 some years ago is now reflecting within our delayed and useless democracy. By the way, democracy does not exist, and never did anywhere, period. Anyway, the film's form, symbolisms and dialogs (which are great) are deliberately constructed to catch the intellectualized audience attention. Why? First, it's Goddard. Second, he is showing his frustration towards a society in the turn of tides. Goddard knows his generation has failed, like many did, and the future is in the hands of clueless people who may not even know what their ideals were. There are many conflicts present in the film, and like any transition period in life conflicts will occur with various opinions about the same subject; however, use to have one symbolic goal, from now on the results will create individual solutions, and instead of uniting people they will actually divide us all and distract us from the importance of communion. The "needing" of one another as a society will be incorporated into peoples lives as a simple need to succeed in a capitalistic world where any person becomes replaceable and without self identity. This is what Goddard, back in 68, was trying to tell us. Did he accomplished that? Well, look at how many people care to vote or comment on this movie and how many did on Star Wars. The shrinking importance of subject in films shows us the importance of visual effects, how's that for a comparison? Goddard knew it all the time what was to come.
ido_h
Shot a few months before his next masterpiece, La Chinoise is perhaps Godard's best film. The bourgeois Leninist-Communist struggle our commune is doing is both extremely tragic as is a comic one. The film is titled also 'a film in a making' and the film is indeed in a making with all the usual godard tricks such as actors talking to the camera, interviews showing the camera and the production men and so on. But these tricks come not without reason as we witness the group's struggle with what godard was struggling at the time: the fight in two ways. The artistic and the politic one. Godard as well known decided in 1968, a year after this film that 'a political intellectual has only one way to become one: stop being an intellectual' (this is not the precise quoting). This film struggles with some of the most modern and post-modern issues such as the function of language, and the implausibility of the fight against capitalism, and the modern necessity of being a bourgeois and a consumer. the only struggle that is possible is perhaps through art (theater) which is what our heroes do, and what godard is doing. and perhaps he had that notion all through his communistic period. Godard is for me the best Director ever. Each film is like a manifest. each line is poetry. each word is a world.ido,