FILM REVIEW: GOODBYE TO LANGUAGE

A scene from Goodbye to Language.

Rad Dog

By Ed Rampell

During the 70-minute Goodbye to Language thesoundtrack fades in and out, but to paraphrase TV’s 1960s sci-fi series The Outer Limits: “There is nothing wrong with your screen. Do not attempt to adjust the picture” -- because the effect is deliberate. This is a Jean-Luc Godard production, after all.

And your humble critic doesn’t have the slightest clue as to what Godard’s latest film is about, and God(-ard) only knows if the 84-year-old filmmaker does. Goodbye to Language is completely indecipherable to this reviewer, just as his 2010 Film Socialisme was (but seriously comrades, can anybody please explain what that movie remotely had to do with socialism???). Indeed, probably every post-1982 Godard work yours truly has seen has defied his comprehension and description. Could this Nouvelle Vague motion picture pioneer be any vaguer and more opaque?

However, now that this obligatory disclaimer is out of the way, please permit your most obedient scribbling servant to add that he nevertheless quite enjoyed Goodbye to Language. Godard's 43rd film is his first shot in 3d and the result is a film full of visally striking, arresting imagery.

During this 70-minute barrage of pictures and sounds there is some sort of love triangle, including graphic nudity, and a lead actor is completely naked (if furry) throughout Goodbye to Language. That’s because this protagonist is a dog, portrayed by Godard’s own pet, Roxy. There are stunning images of Roxy, whose snout is quite glorious in 3D and who provides a kind of animal’s eye view on the doings of we mere mortals. Press notes don’t reveal whether or not Roxy uses the Stanislavsky Method and the mutt isn’t granting (or grunting) any interviews, but Roxy is a good actor with a naturalistic technique, although it should be noted that this thesp speaks with a canine accent.

Goodbye to Language is full of the Godardian leitmotifs and techniques that he has hurled on the screen for more than half a century, since his first 2D feature, 1960’s Breathless and earlier shorts. There are titles, jumpy cuts, clips from Hollywood flicks, lots of philosophical ruminations, mutterings about Mao and Che, a male/female couple striving to transcend alienation to find love (see Godard’s recently re-released 1965 masterpiece, Alphaville), the aforementioned full frontal nudity and more. Interestingly, Goodbye to Language ends with verbal references to the Marquesas Islands, located in Paris’ overseas territory of French Polynesia. There is some sort of murder mystery, perhaps terrorism (hey, if you haven’t seen it yet your guess is as good as that of the initiated), overbearing, omniscient state suppression and so on, but much of it is offscreen, oblique, fragmented, hard to piece together. Or maybe it’s just all over this cinefile’s poor muddled head?

To be sure, Goodbye to Language isn’t every theatergoer’s cup of Tinseltown tea. Most popcorn munchers at the multiplex keen on explosions, exposition, plot, dialogue, escapist action and most other Hollywood movie conventions will probably prefer to spend their buckeroos elsewhere.

But for those hardy few who favor the avant-garde, experimental, poetic, philosophical and challenging, Godard’s newest film is essential existential viewing, must-see cinema by one of our movie masters, as he transports serious cineastes beyond art’s outer limits. One muses that Goodbye to Language is speaking its own language and is as hard to understand today as Breathless’ jump cuts were difficult for 1960 audiences to grasp. This film historian may not have understood Goodbye to Language, but he sure liked it.