Godard is prolific with Parisian stories about beautiful young women; ah, Anna Karina at least, his fetching real life babe. The French New Wave whips by breathlessly, er, make that Breathless, but usually in black and white. A Woman is a Woman is a surprising Matisse splash of color. I was never sure what Karina's real hair color was, but in this one, she is auburn. Breathless, a salute to Humphrey Bogart if Bogey was a Parisian hood, made Godard famous. Then there was One Life to Live where Karina learns the prostitute trade. Somewhere in that period, he made another hood film, Band of Outsiders. All these films have the Godard touch, actors talking to the film audience directly, set shots of the back of actor's heads, strange musical interludes, stranger screen scores, or nonsensical takes on locals and locales. Always the charming Karina mesmerizes the viewer, making up for flimsy, farcical plots with couchette charm.
Woman is not Godard's best, but it is sexy with the strippers as your average working girls and the voyeuristic men, joyless and peculiar. The sudden jerkiness of the film score, sarcasm directed at Hollywood melodramas I'm sure, the jerky dancing and strutting in front of a mirror by Karina, the laughable sex farce, a ménage, is lighter than a soufflé.
Woman is not Godard's best, but it is sexy with the strippers as your average working girls and the voyeuristic men, joyless and peculiar. The sudden jerkiness of the film score, sarcasm directed at Hollywood melodramas I'm sure, the jerky dancing and strutting in front of a mirror by Karina, the laughable sex farce, a ménage, is lighter than a soufflé.