Godard's form is famous, but it's often his stories that really make him worth watching. La Petit Soldat is about a French assassin in Geneva during the Algerian war who is hired to kill a man but, when he refuses, is slowly forced into it through kidnapping and torture. It's also a highly self-reflexive movie in that "shooting" for the protagonist is as much photography as it is killing, and many references are made to the cinematic apparatus.
This movie is perhaps less famous than many Godard films, but it doesn't suffer from it. Without the over-exuberant fan-fare that comes from most of Godard's works, it's much nicer to sit back and watch the relationship between Bruno and Veronica unfold. Say what you'd like about Godard's directing, whether you like his formal experimentation or not, the man knows how to capture relationships with his lens.
It also is something of a thriller, though the scenes of torture he shows are much more painful than shocking. The bland black-and-white almost makes such violent acts stick out more prominently in the mind than much of the rest of the movie, which may or may not be beneficial for the experience of the film--for my part, I liked the dialog a lot more but I remember the torture better.
--PolarisDiB
This movie is perhaps less famous than many Godard films, but it doesn't suffer from it. Without the over-exuberant fan-fare that comes from most of Godard's works, it's much nicer to sit back and watch the relationship between Bruno and Veronica unfold. Say what you'd like about Godard's directing, whether you like his formal experimentation or not, the man knows how to capture relationships with his lens.
It also is something of a thriller, though the scenes of torture he shows are much more painful than shocking. The bland black-and-white almost makes such violent acts stick out more prominently in the mind than much of the rest of the movie, which may or may not be beneficial for the experience of the film--for my part, I liked the dialog a lot more but I remember the torture better.
--PolarisDiB