Five: Bande a part

Godard is one of those famous directors who have attracted more controversies than they actually wanted. Recently when he was being facilitated by the Academy there was nervousness around because he is considered to be a Nazi sympathizer or at least an Anti Semitic. Now that is something Hollywood doesn’t tolerate.

However all his reclusiveness, his existentialism & Marxist thoughts, his strong likes and dislikes cannot take away from him, his genius of treating simplest of stories with utmost creativity.
Though this was my first Godard movie and it grew upon me. ‘Bande a part’ was made by Godard and his wife Anna Karina (who is also the heroine of it) when they had just finished working on a big budget three producer film and hence this carries a small budget, simple setting theme. Anna Karina is a sweetheart in the movie. What is with women who play these innocent victim roles? Why do men get attracted to them?

The movie starts when two unemployed and ignoble characters Franz (played by Sami Frey) & Arthur (Claude Brassuer) trying to seduce Odile (Anna Karina) into making her an accomplice into a heist. Anna has befriended Franz in an English learning centre and reveals to him that there is a big pile of cash lying at her wealthy benefactor’s villa. Franz tells this to Arthur and they scheme to steal the money. Anna is of course the bait to get to the fish. Both guys get attracted to her with Arthur having no true feelings and Franz over the time realising the intense protectiveness he feels towards her. The heist itself has no meaning but the emotional journey for three of them has an attraction which makes watching this movie worthwhile.

It is interceded with a narrator’s voice (done by Godard himself) which keeps the story glued in the times when the visuals are hard to portray. Brilliantly shot in black and white with winter in Paris as a backdrop. You feel the gloom so well that even it would have been shot in Eastman colour the colours wouldn’t have changed much. Godard brings in a lot of allegory through the stories which are told by the characters in the movie, mostly by Franz. Anna Karina is fabulous as her portrayal of young and naive Odile whose effort to impress these two guys always wins over her sense of what is right. Sami Fray is brilliant as and Brassuer plays a brilliant scoundrel. Anna was Godard’s wife and muse and he was totally in awe of her and that sometimes has a negative impact on people as far as her talent is concerned, however, for me that wasn’t the case as I didn’t even know who she was before I saw this movie.

There are a couple of scenes which are worth mentioning here in detail, the dance sequence which I am guessing each critic or admirer would pick too as their favourite and I am not different. The spontaneity of the shot is so wonderful that for me it is already the best dance sequence in any movie that I have seen till now. Especially when the music stops and Godard intervenes by telling us what each character are thinking while they are still dancing, that was a wonderful touch. I truly wanted to put the scene here in the blog but then I felt not to ruin the pleasure of watching the movie.


It’s a movie which needs to be watched for any number of reasons but for me what stood apart were the small little stories that are sewn into the fabric. For example, When John tells about the story with a letter he is referring to Edger Allan Poe’s ‘The Purloined Letter’ or the story where the guy is banished for lying, or the trio trying to break the record set by some American for going through the Louvre fastest or even at the start when the teacher is reading out Romeo and Juliet.

My Favourite Scenes:

1. The fake shooting game between the two actors.
2. The opening class room scene where Odile takes the cigarette from Arthur which brings out a pang of jealousy very clearly.
3. Odile running away from home to go out with these guys, she makes you want be a teenager.
4. Arthur telling Odile that there is a run in her stocking.
5. “The minute of silence”, which actually only lasts for 36 seconds.
6. Of course the dance scene.
7. The song in the metro, and the Godard mixes it between Odile’s voice and the singer.
8. The end scene in the car.

My Favourite Quotes:

1. Odile to Franz: This isn’t your first lie either. Franz: He told you that he killed his grandma with a hammer. Odile: Is that true? Franz: No, just a second lie.
2. Random guy to Franz: Empire crumble, republics founder, but fools go on.
3. The narrator during the dance sequence: Franz thinks of everything and nothing. He wonders if the world is becoming a dream or if the dream is becoming the world.
4. Odile to Franz: Where will you go? South America. Franz: No, North, to the Jack London country, he wrote some terrific books.
5. Just before the heist, the narrator: Under a crystal sky, Arthur, Odile and Franz, crossed bridges over impassive rivers, nothing moved on the palace front, the water was stagnant, a taste of ashes floated in the air.
6. Franz: Isn’t it strange how people never form a whole. Odile: In what way? Franz: They never come together. They remain separate. Each goes his own way, distrustful and tragic. Even when they are together, in big buildings, or in the street.

Disappointments:
Didn’t understand how Lady Victoria was alive when all of them had thought that she was dead.

Rating: