Once again I don't know what do with a Godard film. Not really compelling, but not really awful, not too innovative, but not too formulaic, certainly not entertaining but not completely tedious. A Band of Outsiders is a crime romance flick that just baffles me, but not in a thought-provoking way or any other way of titillating my interest. Ultimately I dislike it. There is some really good stuff in here, but most of it seems to be probing the borders of boredom.As a New Wave film, it's expected that this one too would part ways with conventional storytelling and filming style, but it's caught in that awkward middle way where it's not over the top enough to be really memorable and inspired and it's not conventional enough to tell an entertaining crime story. Godard's typical tricks are here on display too; sudden deadpan narration, sudden diversions, sudden sound mixing and editing jokes, but most of those miss their mark here. The plot moves unbearably slow and the characters here are far from magnetic or charismatic, besides Anna Karina, but that's probably just because she's pretty to look at. I didn't care for these characters' fates at all.The film isn't completely bland. There's some really good stuff here. The dance scene is very cute, the music all throughout the film is charming, the camera occasionally captures a great snapshot of 1960s Paris. But really, for every good scene here there are 10 tedious ones, and it just doesn't click with me overall.

Bande à partCriminals come in many forms. But to be successful it's important that you commit crimes with fake tattoos, a noticeable limp, and an Irish accent.Unfortunately, the thieves in this heist movie decided to go with their native French tongue.Taking an English class together, three disfranchised Parisian youths, Odile (Anna Karina), Arthur (Claude Brasseur) and Franz (Sami Frey), decide to fleece a houseguest of Odile's aunt of his fortune.Attracted to Odile, both Arthur and Franz agree to the heist; however, their plan is expedited after Arthur's uncle gets wind of the available cash.Forced to rob the visitor at once, the trio's simple plan becomes a problematic bloodbath.A subtle stick'em up, imbued with director Jean-Luc Godard's New Wave vision, Bande à part is an unconventional love story amid an unprofessional heist.Besides, don't French robbers have a reputation of surrendering their arms if you saw you're German? (Green Light)vidiotreviews.blogspot.com

Bande a part or Band of Outsiders, directed by Jean-Luc Godard is one of the most important films of the French New Wave. It has had a tremendous influence on modern filmmakers such as Aki Kaurismäki, Martin Scorcese and Wim Wenders. It's one of the keys for the one trying to figure out the secret of French new wave. Band of Outsiders might be a little hard to understand if one's unfamiliar with Godard's own influences: Robert Bresson, b-class film-noir, neo-realism and especially Jean Rouch. Godard admired Jean Rouch who made sociological, fictive documentaries such as Moi, un noir (1958), The Mad Masters (1955) and La pyramide humaine (1961). Jean Rouch tried to combine reality and fiction, to understand the dynamic relation between them. Jean-Luc Godard clearly builds his films around this philosophy of film; the combination of reality and fiction - both of which can never be separated from each other.Band of Outsiders is both a tribute to American b-class crime films and a poetic description of Parisian suburbs. Three amateurs (Anna Karina, Sami Frey, Claude Brasseur) become acquainted at an English class and eventually begin to plan a small heist. In the middle of the encounter and the heist, the group of three has time to dance, chit-chat, act crime scenes, sit still and quiet for one minute and run through Louvre in a new record time.Jean-Luc Godard himself called Band of Outsiders a "suburb western" and to my mind that's maybe the best description one can give about it. Alongside with Breathless, The 400 Blows, Cleo from 5 to 7 and Hiroshima, mon amour, Band of Outsiders is one of the biggest films from the new wave era. Jean-Luc Godard was one of the five essential filmmakers, editors of Cahiers du Cinema, of the Nouvelle Vague (Truffaut, Rohmer, Chabrol, Rivette). They represented a generation of filmmakers who loved cinema, they all wrote a great deal of studies, articles and reviews about films in their influential magazine Cahiers du Cinema. They wanted to stabilize the position of the director not the producer, as the auteur. Band of Outsiders is perhaps the biggest tribute to cinema from all of the films by the Nouvelle Vague directors.The film is part of a certain era in Jean-Luc Godard's career. He started by making fictional shorts and documentaries until 1960 when he got to make his first feature Breathless. Shortly he came across with a young model Anna Karina and instantly fell in love with her. He made six films with her during four years; all the progression of love, the climaxes of it and the disappearance of it can be seen in the films Godard made during these four films: the ones with Karina and the ones without. Bande a part still represents the playful, joyful era of Godard which ended in the following year when he made the scary futuristic vision, Alphaville (1965). But he didn't want to end his and Anna's journey to that dark, pessimist sci-fi and still made one more film with her, Pierrot le fou (1965) in color.Alain Resnais, Agnes Varda, Jacques Demy and Chris Marker represented a group of different kind of French new wave filmmakers; often called the 'left side'. They were politically much more aware compared to the film freaks of the Nouvelle Vague. In Godard's early days he had nothing important to say with his films, he tried to search for new dimensions of narrative and to challenge the limitations of cinema. So the one who seeks for a political message or a deep study of humanity from Band of Outsiders will find oneself in a dead end and I think that's exactly what happened to me on my first viewing, but after a few years times have changed and I've become much more aware of the French new wave and Godard.This certainly doesn't mean that Jean-Luc Godard wouldn't be political but during the 'Anna Karina' era his films were playful, light and joyful with the exception of Alphaville. After he broke up with Anna Karina, whom he first married, he started making different kind of films: political essays, films about different loves such as La chinoise and Week End or now in the 21st century: In the Praise of Love and Notre Musique.Band of Outsiders is a wonderful tribute to American b-class films, films that Edgar G. Ulmer and Joseph H. Lewis made for instance: Gun Crazy, Ruthless and Detour. It's a melancholy poetic description of the life in a Parisian suburb and represents an interesting time in Godard's career. It's a real eye-opener for all of who are interested in French New Wave, Jean-Luc Godard's work, his relationship with Anna Karina or poetic narrative.

"For latecomers arriving now, we offer a few words chosen at random... Three Weeks Earlier. A pile of money. An English class. A house by the river. A romantic girl."The recipe for the most effortlessly cool movie ever made. It's the sort of thing Tarantino has been trying to make for what seems like an eternity, what "Pulp Fiction", in occasional bursts, comes close to being. But that movie is too self-conscious, tries too hard. That's not to suggest that Godard wasn't conscious of what he was doing when writing this film- all writers are, we have to be. But I don't think Godard was trying too be cool, I think he just was. It's a cheap crime flick, according to some nothing too interesting at all, a rehash of "Breathless", and even some of the other New Wave giant Truffaut's movies... "Jules and Jim" and "Shoot the Piano Player" have been mentioned.But that's all part of this film's charm. Godard, a favorite of mine, can be awfully pretentious and HAS been awfully pretentious. If you're consistently making experimental movies you think are challenging, if you are always changing your mind on what constitutes good cinema, if you're obsessed with quotes and references and philosophy and philosophers, you're bound to be pretentious on occasion. "Band of Outsiders" is a pulpy crime flick with great wit, fun characters, good performances and a well-told story, and that's all it is. It's a great film because it's great at being what it is.The screenplay is glorious. The dialogue is gold, the narrative momentum never slows down, we know all we need to know about these people and their goals, and the movie's irreverent, hip air is a thing to behold. Or experience, rather. Great photography by Raoul Coutard. Everyone knows the best bits: the minute of silence, the dance scene, the visit to the Louvre. Depth is not needed in this sort of movie, it's a romp, plain and simple (though one with some amount of complexity- you can read it as Godard examining the need for escapism, specifically in the form of cinema, among other things). A glorious delight from start to finish and one of my favorite films. Unforgettable, still Godard's best film.