8/10
Godard's liberation of the puzzle
26 April 2024
Jean-Luc Godard's last film from the 70s is an impressive disturbance. Because of this, or for other reasons, I occasionally felt compelled to knock on the gogglebox. But that only helped to a limited extent. What did help was the convincing cast of French actors. With them, the seemingly unreal film takes us at times to the heights of winding roads, at other moments to the lowlands of Geneva, where we meet people in a wide variety of places: at known and unknown sporting activities, on occasions where people arguing and gossiping. We see some guys and gals in consternation and a mid-aged guy with a toddler on his shoulders angry due a soundless film screening.

Do you know how to recognize films made in Switzerland? It's not primarily the CH license plate, which you may see everywhere. No, if anything then it's the rugged charm of rural villages, happily munching cows, sometimes horses, and freshly cultivated hummocky fields around them. Above all, however, it is the Swiss window mechanisms that stick out. The kind you don't even know how to use properly in Germany, let alone overseas. They are almost as enigmatic as this movie.

Nevertheless, Godard's film isn't an old-fashioned response to the fallibility of the seventies' " modernity". Not by any means. The female protagonists are turned towards progress and strive for independence from their male counterpart. Who in return takes revenge for so much bickering by badgering his adolescent daughter Cecile (Cécile Tanner) in this case with a pile of T-shirts. The obviously badly misunderstood male lead, played by Jacques Dutronc, probably represents an alter ego of Jean-Luc Godard himself, or am I the one being badly misled? Regardless of whether or not, it is no coincidence that the main actor in the script is called Godard. And at the end of the day, you will also realize that almost all of the women revolve around (Paul) Godard.

Incidentally, the German title of SAUVE QUI PEUT is SAVE himSELF WHO CAN. You can also translate RETTE SICH WER KANN as SAVE yourSELF WHO CAN. In my opinion a quite fitting title, isn't it? All in all, well worth a watch.

Post scriptum: There IS a nudity warning, but I'm sure you've registered already that this movie is a journey into the 'French Arthouse Cinematheque' and therefore for adults only.
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