Notre Musique (2004)

67% of critics liked it
(54 reviews)
69% of users liked it
(3,090 ratings)

Legendary French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard once again poses a number of provocative questions about art, politics, and the nexus point between them in this drama in three acts, "Hell," "Purgatory," and "Paradise." After a collage of film clips illustrate a meditation on the nature of war and… More Legendary French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard once again poses a number of provocative questions about art, politics, and the nexus point between them in this drama in three acts, "Hell," "Purgatory," and "Paradise." After a collage of film clips illustrate a meditation on the nature of war and conflict in society, Godard introduces his central set piece, in which a group of authors, artists, and noted thinkers gather for a symposium taking place in the battle-scarred city of Sarajevo. Olga Brodsky (Nade Dieu) is a young journalist who is French and Jewish by birth and Israeli by choice; she has come to discuss the conflict between her adopted nation and Palestine with some of the many notables in attendance, in particular a celebrated Palestinian author. As Olga wrestles with issues of conflict, identity, and culture along with others at the conference, one of the participants, Jean-Luc Godard, points out the frustrating similarities between the grammar of cinema and human nature, and posits the notion that it's the essential differences of the peoples of the world, rather than their similarities, which are at the root of our culture. Notre Musique was a prizewinner at the 2004 San Sebastián International Film Festival, where it was named Film of the Year. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Rating, Runtime: Unrated, 1 hr. 20 min.
Directed By: Jean-Luc Godard
Written By: Jean-Luc Godard
Genres: Documentary, Drama, Art House & International, Special Interest

In Theaters: Dec 3, 2004 Limited
On DVD: May 17, 2005
Studio: Optimum Releasing

Critic Reviews

Desson Thomson, Washington Post
This film, which awakens your inner philosopher and encourages it to breathe, may not be an experience for everyone; if only it were.
Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News
There's plenty here to unpack, most of it regarding modern malaise, and the rewards are proportionate to the amount of work you want to put in.
Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer
Hardly a director alive possesses Godard's eye for dynamic, inner-lit old-masterly compositions.
Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
Jean-Luc Godard has had a tendency to be combative and obscure. He's a lot calmer and steadier in his latest feature.
Ruthe Stein, San Francisco Chronicle
A lumpy mix of real-life and fictional events that shows age hasn't diminished the famed filmmaker's zeal to experiment.
Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune
It will mean much more to those familiar with his work. But those moviegoers will experience intense pleasure in watching a great innovator at a personal high point.
Kelly Vance, East Bay Express
Godard's montage is as deadly as ever and his palette is seemingly every camera shot that has ever been made.
Robert Davis, Paste Magazine
Godard establishes then subverts his clean, mirrored construction with an array of fascinating ideas that attempt to understand symbiotic but unequal relationships.
Ken Fox, TV Guide's Movie Guide
This intellectually scintillating think-piece from the eternally relevant Jean-Luc Godard finds Hell and Purgatory right here on our sorry, scorched earth.
David Parkinson, Empire Magazine
The 73 year-old enfant terrible can still take society to task for failing to recognise that it's our dualities that enrich life rather than any fanciful notions of global unity.
Keith Phipps, AV Club
Jean-Luc Godard's unfathomable influence on filmmaking has allowed him to enjoy a kind of grandfather clause in recent years.
Jeffrey M. Anderson, SPLICEDWire
Jean-Luc Godard returns with another of his extraordinary, heated, agitated essay films.
Christopher Null, Filmcritic.com
Godard attempts to paint modern Europe as Dante's various circles of Hell -- but one fears he has lost 90 percent of the audience in the first 10 minutes
Tom Dawson, BBC
Director Jean-Luc Godard, the enfant terrible of the French New Wave, is now in his mid-seventies, yet he's lost none of his desire to challenge an audience.
Cherryl Dawson and Leigh Ann Palone, TheMovieChicks.com
My review summed up in three parts: war is bad, nature is good, and Godard is senile. If this is our music, somebody needs to get a better soundtrack.
Frank Swietek, One Guy's Opinion
Marries a banal message with a directorial technique that's now more sclerotic than innovative.
Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews
Too abstract and lacking in a moral compass to be going anywhere that was real.
Shawn Levy, Oregonian
Fractured, dense, opaque and demanding in a way that few other filmmakers would dare to make it.
Eric D. Snider, EricDSnider.com
An impenetrably ponderous, smarty-pants rumination on war (among other things), the very sort of film for which the term 'artsy-fartsy' was devised.
Sean Burns, Philadelphia Weekly
It's the first Godard film in years that hasn't made me want to rip out handfuls of my hair and then jump out a window. Does that count as a comeback?

Read all 21 critic reviews

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Featured Audience Ratings

danny d

unfortunately this film is another example of godards style during this late part of his career over the past 30 years where he is sacrificing coherent story for stylistic elements, despite the fact that early in his career he was able to do both well. having said that, this is a… More
unfortunately this film is another example of godards style during this late part of his career over the past 30 years where he is sacrificing coherent story for stylistic elements, despite the fact that early in his career he was able to do both well. having said that, this is a much better example of this sort of filmmaking than godards 80's films. rather than a strait forward story this film plays out more like cultural and philosophical snap shots, and the flow of the film was helped out quite a bit by the influence of dante on the three act structure. i still miss godards dialogue and story telling mastery of the 1960's, but this is a great film for thinking through the world and nature of humanity.
Walter M

[font=Century Gothic]Jean-Luc Godard's "Notre Musique" consists of three parts. "Hell" is a ten-minute long prologue consisting of a montage of violent images from cinema and real life.(Very reminiscient of Chris Marker, by the way.) The main section of the… More
[font=Century Gothic]Jean-Luc Godard's "Notre Musique" consists of three parts. "Hell" is a ten-minute long prologue consisting of a montage of violent images from cinema and real life.(Very reminiscient of Chris Marker, by the way.) The main section of the movie, "Purgatory", takes place in Sarajevo(with a surprisingly large American Indian population) where an Israeli journalist, Olga(Sarah Adler), has just arrived. The third section is an epilogue, named "Paradise".[/font] [font=Century Gothic][/font] [font=Century Gothic]"Notre Musique" pretty much dispenses with any kind of character development or story and simply floats a whole bunch of free-floating ideas. The most intelligible of these involves those mentioned by Olga about Sarajevo being a possible model of peace(the notion that two very different groups of people can co-exist peacefully) for the Middle East. [/font] [font=Century Gothic][/font] [font=Century Gothic][/font]