This film's an experiment, and I think it's fair to say that it doesn't quite pull it off. But I nonetheless found it quite an engaging film.The plot is threadbare. An American journalist and her French husband are accidentally embroiled in an occupation at a factory. The different characters put their points of view about the occupation, and as the film goes on, the perspective widens, until it really isn't about the factory anymore, but about the state of France.There are some striking scenes here, all of them pictorial rather than dramatic. Many of the characters speak to camera in one-sided dialogues (rather than monologues— the distinction is obvious when you watch). There are a few of Godard's trademark long panning shots. Fragments of vision recur or are recast. The effect of this style is to externalise all the characters. None is a mind or a soul. They are rather expressions of a certain point of view, or noises in the cacophony of society and history.One of the film's more successful elements is its frame-narrative. Two voices discuss how the film ought to be put together, what it ought to achieve, and play around with the characters' fates. The frequent references to Brecht in the body of the film meld nicely with the frame, and make it clear that Godard is going for an "Entfremdungseffekt"—this is not a film to be immersed in, but one that is supposed to provoke reflection.And that it most certainly does. I felt downright uncomfortable at times, as the film ruthlessly sent up the supposed insight of intellectuals, and the supposed historical effectiveness of political parties. But the film also had a light touch, and its gloriously silly penultimate scene left me laughing at my political certainties, rather than empty and sad.It doesn't quite cohere, but I'm very glad I saw it. 7/10

Political upheavals at a sausage factory in France ensnare a visiting female reporter and her commercial-director husband; after they return to the normalcy of their lives, the couple find their marriage has irrevocably changed. Examination of the European class struggle of the early 1970s from filmmakers Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin is cheekily framed (though for no apparent reason) by voice-over work from a man and a woman discussing the cinematic possibilities of the material we're seeing. Stars Yves Montand and Jane Fonda are flexible within this flaky milieu, though Godard and Gorin have made the characters colorless, stand-ins for real people. Some of the frank sexual dialogue is bold and surprising, and the cynical finale is thoughtful, but much of the picture is withered by unamusing, unenlightening grandstanding. *1/2 from ****

This film deliberately ignores conventional structure and this is because director Godard liked to buck convention AND this film is all about the need to overhaul the system (and I guess this can extend to conventional film making as well). I actually liked the way it started--with two people talking about how to deign a scenario for a film. However, after that the film got a bit slow. The film turned out to be about the general strike that crippled France in 1968 that changed the face of French society--ushering in an age of increased workers' rights (such as French law making it practically impossible to fire workers, guaranteeing six weeks paid vacation, etc.) and the supposed paradise for the people. Well, thirty-five years later, France is once again fighting this SAME battle again, as since instituting these progressive changes, unemployment has skyrocketed and industries have left France like rats leaving a sinking ship. France, as well as our class system, like this movie, have no easy answers.So far, I have written a huge number of reviews on IMDb and they usually flow from my mind to the computer screen rather easily. Thank you, Jean-Luc Godard for making this a much tougher task than usual!! While I did not hate this film nearly as much as PIERRE LE FOU, ALPHAVILLE or PRENOM CARMEN (films of Godard that I have hated), I didn't particularly enjoy this movie nor did I really care about it--I just felt very little about the film one way or the other. As usual for Godard, the subject matter is the ills of conventional capitalism and his desire to overhaul "the system". However, unlike the three films I just listed, at least TOUT VA BIEN makes you think and it's not a film to easily dismiss or adore--it's more an enigma. Plus, I don't really think Godard thought he had all the answers to improving society, despite his far-left leanings and the leanings of his two stars. And I guess, for bucking convention, for allowing itself to be vague as well as offering something different, it might have been worth while. I certainly did not enjoy it, nor would the average viewer. Only those who adore terms like "class struggle", "prolotariot" and the like as well as die-hard Godard freaks will probably find this a great or memorable film.

Going through the French language and its subtitles, I was amazed about the reason of this film, and since I had been to France over 5 times, I was starting to like this film more and more. The film is Jean-Luc Godard's melodramatic story with some twinges of independent comedy about the rise of the new leftists in France in 1972....and its effects on not only France...but all those in other parts of the world whose only way of bettering themselves is through socialist struggle.The film also remarks the year 1972 to some of the major events that crippled the world in 1968, like the MLK assassination, the Black Power gesture at the Mexico City summer Olympic games as well as the violent crackdown on protesters at Tlatelco University, and the massive antiwar outcry during the American involvement in the Vietnam War.Although I never researched Godard's history, this film was probably inspired by Hugo's "Les Miserables" and the socialist uprising in Lyon, France in the 1830s.One of the first scenes I adored is the crackdown on leftist strikers who were protesting at a factory at the town of Filns. A bus that carried the strikers to the protest was set on fire by police and blows up, and the strikers walk up at you with hands behind their heads. A voice-over tells some places in France that had similar crackdowns, like Dunkerque and Palais De Sport. That scene is an allusion to the Jews who were sent off to concentration camps in World War II.But there is one person who shocked me in the film---but she is not a French actor. Her name is Jane Fonda. She did speak some English in the film--sometimes without the usual French subtitles put in. This was an allusion to the Americanization of France that was temporarily halted around 1990.Jane Fonda played the role in the film an American reporter trying to deal with the events leading to the explosive leftist struggle in France in 1972. It was quite remarkable for this lady who could be almost the antithesis of Susan Sarandon, since during the Vietnam War, Jane went to Vietnam to temporarily go on the side of those Vietnamese who were fighting the Americans. At least, the film did not mention anything about the war in Vietnam. If that was so, the whole film would be completely ruined by American antiwar backlash.I especially adore the scene at the Carrefour supermarket. Here, Jean-Luc Godard does a filming technique I call "the slow-sliding pan". Godard uses the big expanse of this super-store to tell multiple events. There was Jane Fonda, who is right in the middle of the store chaos, witnessing a crowd of onlookers surrounding a small band of members who are trying to enlist bystanders to the French Communist Party. One of the group's leaders shouts "Join The French Communist Party! Four-Thirty Francs Down from Five-Fifty Francs! Better life!" It seems like leftists in France don't like it when inflation runs out of control.As the bystanders discount the group, the strikers that were cracked down at Filns appear from the back-door entrance of the store, strike back and tell the bystanders that all of the store's items are "gratuit"--or free. The bystanders and the strikers then fill up the shopping carts and try to get out of the store. This was techincally looting---not just shoplifting---and the cops later come in, stopping some of the stealers with their batons but several of them get away with the loot. The result is still another allusion--this time to the looting after Hurricane Katrina.When at the end of the flick you hear "France...1972.....Me.....You", as Godard pans the camera on an an old junkyard on a cloudy day, then a brick wall, and then the same junkyard again, Godard is telling us that the leftist struggle in that year is a warning for all people who protest--not just the French. Protest way too far and you will suffer devastating consequences. (Like what happened when the Red Brigade group terrorized Italy in the 1970s.) Protest gently and you may get what you really deserve. Therefore, what I like overall in the film is how France faired in the early 1970s. If you like to see what was really on French peoples' minds in that time, this film is just for you!