76
Metascore
22 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 80The GuardianPeter BradshawThe GuardianPeter BradshawIt is bewildering. I’m not sure I understood more than a fraction and of course it can be dismissed as obscurantism and mannerism. But I found The Image Book rich, disturbing and strange.
- 80TheWrapSteve PondTheWrapSteve PondMake no mistake: This is an angry movie, both in form and in content.
- 80If it’s hard to understand exactly what Godard is trying to say in this brief scrapbook scamper—it clocks in at one hour, 25 minutes—just watching it is a strange, melancholy pleasure, and an open window into the world of things that worry its creator.
- 80VarietyOwen GleibermanVarietyOwen GleibermanOur world, in The Image Book, has finally caught up to Jean-Luc Godard’s doom-laden dream of it. He seems to be saying that we all have a choice: to change it, or to sit back in our TV armchairs and watch.
- 80Time OutDave CalhounTime OutDave CalhounOne of the many powerful things about The Image Book is how it so aggressively rejects any sort of gloss or neat packaging. The telling is the story.
- 75The Film StageRory O'ConnorThe Film StageRory O'ConnorThere is something quite reassuring about the fact that — infuriating as it sometimes may be — he has not lost that particular passion nor that roving eye, and that maybe, though he might not admit it, that love of images, too.
- 60Screen DailyJonathan RomneyScreen DailyJonathan RomneyThe Image Book if nothing else, is inestimable, in that it defies normal estimation or assessment; to encounter a film this intransigently confrontational by an artist who shows no sign of softening will be a nightmare for many, but yes, for many a privilege and a pleasure.
- 50The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyThe Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyOne imagines Godard spending whole days playing with dials, switches and buttons to discover the very moments he wishes to emphasize in his clips, and a good many of them are passingly arresting.
- 40CineVueJohn BleasdaleCineVueJohn BleasdaleEverything seems designed to disturb or perhaps infuriate the viewer.