Jacques and Susan, a Franco American couple, go to a meatworks for a journalistic investigation and are immediately involved in a workers' occupation, thrown into an office as captive with the boss. The fourth wall is broken by addresses from the boss who sees the action as a minor inconvenience, a union rep who calls it counterproductive, and the workers themselves who set themselves apart from both parties who consider them invisible outside work hours. In the first of two major Godardian setpieces, we watch as the camera tracks sideways back and forth along a cross-sectioned factory building as we see the time of the occupation passing and the seemingly ineffectual action of the workers.
After the occupation, the boss is fired (with the assumption that someone identical will replace him) the workers are no better off (possibly worse that they've fallen foul of the union) and Jacques and Susan, stunned, walk away with mixed feelings that lead them to confront what their lives have become.
In case anyone in the audience of the film when fresh missed it, the spectre of May '68, the near two months of demonstrations, strikes and occupations that gave rise to solid hope that the toughening rightist rule in Europe might be on the verge of collapse. But the big guys won again and things went back to the way they were only with a lot more readiness from above to keep the pressure downward. For French people of the left, academics and artists, the event remains one of both anger and hope.
Godard and Gorin's four years later look at where France had gone in the interim is both rich with the kind of subversive cinema that Godard had led in fierce independence away from the warmer and fuzzier New Wave as his film practice grew increasingly radical, artistically and politically. While Godard in the wake of May '68 had dived deep into the Marxist Leninist ethos that opposed the auteurism that had made him famous and the films he directed grew more obscure and difficult (including gems like One Plus One and British Sounds) Gorin had been nurturing his own film experiments in the USA, coming back to France to co-steer this epic of incredulity.
The prologue is a discussion between a male and female voice about the making of a film, how to set up a production, what it should be about, the kind of characters to use, over images of social groups, locations and cheques for elements like cinematography and score and so on. This is par for the course for the '60s Nouvelle Vague which often began its films with self-reflexive commentary. The casting of the central couple who seem to have made a journey of many pre and post May '68, is intentionally similar to that of Breathless with established stars Yves Montand and Jane Fonda as Jacques and Susan.
Everybody here has come a long way. The couple each have their story of youthful activism followed by the needs of careers followed by comfort. Jacques still thinks of making documentaries (he accompanies Susan to the meatworks for this purpose) but these days is really only making tv commercials. Susan, having worked her way from lighter fare now has become a foreign political correspondent for an American service but feels increasingly stagnant in the role. In the accounts given by the meat workers we see them as workers on the lines and at the machines working as described. The experience of the occupation at the factory doesn't so much radicalise them as remind them of what they left in the wake of the massive action four years before, right down to questions they have about their marriage.
Agreeing to separate, he helms another ad while she goes to write a piece from a supermarket. In the second extraordinary setpiece of the film the camera again sideways tracks back and forth, this time from behind the checkouts at the shop. Customers load the conveyor belts with masses of products as a man with a table of red covered paperbacks preaches revolution with the French Communist Party. At first he could be mistaken for a radical actor but then he just seems like another hawker like someone with a tray of samples. While on one of the slow tracks we see a group of student-types running in along an aisle and begin undercutting the current of retail, first subverting the Communist bookseller and then persuading the shoppers that everything they load into their trolleys will be free. It looks situationist like the ones in May '68 but it also looks organised. It's not on the factory floor and it's far from the campuses, it looks and feels like action in real life. The gendarmes turn up with their shields and clubs because they do that but now it's after the knowledge that this can happen.
To avoid a charge of political naivete, we then return to Jacques and Susan who meet up again at a cafe, a turn with reversed roles each, who we are told agree to try and work things out without false ideals but real cooperation. In the end we are given the gaudy Godardian title: THIS IN AN ACCOUNT FOR THOSE WHO DIDN'T MAKE ONE.
How does it look in 2022? Well, apart from needing to go Google May '68, fresher viewers might well recognise the same need for a return to values that uphold the collective good. You don't need the flags or the uniforms but you do need to bring your voice and mix it in. Yes, I'm an auld lefty of decades' standing. This film is difficult to find and more difficult to get through if you are used to the faster fare in cinemas and streamers but, if you do come upon it, try it. Some of the characters preach but the film doesn't, all it says is think about it.
Viewing notes: I saw this on my old Criterion DVD and it's in a great need of an upgrade. I was surprised at the subpar video quality for something from that label but there it was. Checking on Criterion's site I find that not only has there not even been a Blu-Ray but that the DVD has been deleted from the catalogue. This doesn't mean that the film is no longer available but that Criterion no longer has a licence to release it. Just checked , there's a UK Blu-Ray.
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