TWO OR THREE THINGS I KNOW ABOUT HER/ DEUX OU TROIS CHOSES QUE JE SAIT D’ELLE

France, 1967, 87 minutes, Colour.
Marina Vlady, Roger Montsoret, Anny Duperey, Raoul Levy, Jean Narboni, Yves Beneyton, Juliet Berto.
Directed by Jean- Luc Godard.

In the 1950s, Jean- Luc Godard was an avid critic, one of the New Wave, including François Truffaut, Claude Chabrol, Eric Rohmer, who made such an impact on world cinema in the 1950s and 1960s. What he made a number of feature films, especially such films as Breathless as well as Le Mepris/Contempt, he began to move more and more into feature films which were more essays, thought and ideas pieces with social commentary. This is one of those films.

The setting is 1967 and so there is the background of the war in Vietnam and the various characters make comments on the impact of the war, on the role of President Johnson, on the range of bombings in Indochina and the fact that this did not bring about peace negotiations.

In this context, we are introduced to the actress Marina Vlady, with something of her biography, and she assumes the role of a French housewife, devoted to her husband and family, yet moving into prostitution. This provides a great deal of comment, including the title, about men and women during the 1960s and the extraordinary changes which occurred at that time.

The film also offers a range of chapters, headings focus on industrialisation, the word “ideas� coming on screen quite frequently as we see the characters in their actions as well as hear them in their conversations.

There are visuals of changes in industrialisation in France at that period. In retrospect, the new buildings in Paris are still reminiscent of buildings half a century later.

There is also a critique of capitalism, especially in the range of goods in a shop, whether customers need them or not, the power of advertising and promotion, the effect, especially on women as they talk amongst themselves, the touches of gossip in ordinary life in contrast with the ideas and abstractions that also pervade the film.

This film then is a reflection of the latter part of the 1960s, a further step in Godard’s cinematic exploration of ideas and themes and are continually aggressive perspective on contemporary life.