A Woman Is a Woman

Iconic classic by the legendary member of the French new wave. Not to be missed.

good good good good good

It's stylish, arch, and mannered, a very sophisticated comedy with a few laughs that aims to make you think. The film techniques here really come between the viewer and the story and characters, and I think they're meant to, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. The movie depicts a squabble between a couple over whether to have a child, and in spite of the self-conscious artistry, it does have quite a bit of insight into human behaviour. Not the best Godard film, but a Godard film nevertheless.

One, if not the most, of Godard chraming love letters to cinema. No one should miss it.

There’s no denying that Jean-Luc Godard has a particular style to his films, and he makes truly bold choices. A Woman is a Woman shows just how wacky his film-making can be. At times it drives me nuts, and then other times I love it. I was worried by his choice in an early scene to drop out the accompaniment whenever our main character is singing in the club, leaving her to struggle through the song a capella, and then bringing the music back up as soon as she stops. It sounded awkward, and off-putting. But then he’d make hilarious choices like having the characters break the fourth wall all the time and, in one of the greatest scenes, having lovers get into a silent argument by just showing one another insulting book titles. I even sensed some inside jokes that I would like to explore further, because I didn’t totally understand them. There isn’t a ton of story in A Woman is a Woman, as it all seems to boil down to one young woman’s desperation to have a baby. It’s probably good that the movie was so simple, though, because Godard doesn’t take much time to tell this story in a traditional narrative way. He’s so busy surprising you with strange shot selection and unusual edits, that no one has time for details like exposition or other normal movie things. Done in the wrong way this would probably drive me nuts, but I was having so much fun with A Woman is a Woman that I didn’t mind one bit. At times things got so goofy that I felt like I was watching a Mel Brooks parody film, and I was eating that stuff up. The resolution of the story is kind of stupid, and I can’t say I was a huge fan of how these people handled their relationship, but I had so many laughs getting to that point that I didn’t care. It’s a film I’d actually want to watch again sometime, which I don’t often say about French New Wave films.