Review #114: 'Bande à Part' (1964)

In 1960, French visionary Jean-Luc Godard made A Bout De Souffle, a film that influenced generations of filmakers, and had a style that is still seen in films today. It was a low-budget, free-spirited crime film that mixed genres, conventions and techniques, and kicked off the French New Wave movement. As Godard progressed, he became more confident and experimental, making musical comedy Une Femme Est Une Femme in 1961, political thriller Le Petit Soldat in 1963, and the satirical Le Mepris in the same year. He had unfinished business, it seemed, as he returned to the B-movie crime genre in 1964 with Bande A Part, similar in themes to his debut. Why he did this is unclear, but thank God he did, as, in my opinion, it's an ultimately better film.

Shy student Odile (Anne Karina), is befriended and by two partners in crime, the quirky and silent Franz (Sami Frey), and the confident and reckless Arthur (Claude Brasseur). Both men are seemingly besotted with the beautiful Odile. The three become friends, hanging out in cafes, driving around, and generally messing about. After a while, a strange love triangle forms as the two men try their best to seduce Odile, who initially only seemed interested in Arthur. It soon becomes apparent, however, that the two men are using Odile to plan a heist of her Auntie, who she mentions has a large amout of cash stashed in her apartment.

The first two thirds of the film sees Godard at his most playful. The famous scene in which the three dance in time to a jazz song is one of the most delightful scenes I've seen in a Godard film. The music occasionally stops, allowing us to hear the characters inner thoughts, and also to see how ridiculous the characters look without the music playing. To me, it seemed Godard was both showing how wonderful cinema could be, as well as highlighting the deceitfulness of it. Perhaps I was mis-reading it, or maybe Godard was leaving it open to interpretation, or maybe it is just a fun scene. Either way, it's a great scene.

It's also delightful to see Anna Karina, as it always is. She is one of the darlings of French cinema (even though she is Danish), and truly one of the most beautiful women to have ever graced the screen. She was, at the time, married to Godard and appeared in many of his films until their divorce in 1967. She gives one of her best Godard performances here, playing shy and timid early on, to become more confident and calculating later on, having the two men practically worshipping her. That is until the final heist scene when the men become drastically vicious and nasty as they get desperate in their greed.

It is one of the last of the light-hearted films Godard made before taking a more political and controlled approach to cinema. After this he went on to make sci-fi masterpiece Alphaville (1965) and, in my opinion, his best film Weekend (1967), a dark and hypnotic odyssey into a bourgeois-consumerist nightmare future. Bande A Part may lack a recognisable plot, but it has spirit in abundance, and style to spare.


Directed by: Jean-Luc Godard
Starring: Anna Karina, Sami Frey, Claude Brasseur
Country: France

Rating: *****

Tom Gillespie