Anastasia Bartzoulianou (anastasia57001)

A film about truth, art, theatre, reality, human relationships, and a bunch of other subjects, but basically a film about awareness. Awareness of the person as a human being, awareness of the artist, as a cretive force that changes and shapes our perception of reality- all those difficult subjects that are hard to define, here are treated easily, without effort, just as the going to a casual dinner with an old friend.

But we all know that dinner with an old friend is never simple. In this case we hear about Andre and his mental problems beforehand, so every crazy story he shares with us in the beginning, almost doesn't make sense, until the film wraps up. It takes a bit of patience, to grasp the meaning, as he shares all the details of a mad "awakening"session with Grotowski's group in a Polish forest, but it's never dull. After all, to find the meaning, one has to look from outside, outside reality, in this case. All those acting exercises, they are surreal.

Don't even get me started on direction. Louis Malle uses every detail carefully, uses the body language of the actors and the mirrors in the room, even the coming and going of the waiter, as a valued comment that propels the story.

I feel sorry for people who don't get Louis Malle, because they are just missing too much. Anyone who's wondering how could a director make a film about two people talking that lasts two hours (without them ever leaving the table), and not be boring... well you should really see this. It's never boring. You just have to get the point everytime, and everytime they go on telling another story, follow the thread. In the end you might as well discover, what evades anyone, from time to time: meaning.

Michel (Jean-Paul Belmondo), protagonist and anti-hero, is a young criminal on the run from the police, after stealing a car and killing a cop. He has an affair with a beautiful young American, Patricia (Jean Seberg), an aspiring journalist who sells the New York Herald Tribune in the middle of the Champs Élysées (Eva Green in Bertolucci's "The Dreamers" paid her tribute for this scene). Patricia is also expecting Michel's baby. She helps Michel to dodge the police, while they steal cars together in order to raise money for a trip to Rome.

Breathless is all style. The story line is interesting, but it is just an excuse. It's Godard's aesthetics, production modes, subject matters, and storytelling methods that are key. First of all, the whole movie was shot on a hand-held camera, just like most all New Wave pictures. It was, however, only shot by two people (Godard and his cinematographer, Raoul Coutard) on a budget that did not top $50,000, a mere fraction of what most pictures cost at the time (another facet of the New Wave). It was shot completely on location in Paris, and utilized new film-making techniques that would be used by film-making students for decades to come (such as putting the camera in a mail cart on the Champs Elysees and following Belmondo and Seberg). Note Godard's use of American cinema influence, and how the montage art of the 1950s impacted this aesthetic. [with thanks to a. parondi and izmatt]

Absolutely magnificent in any way -- and you can't help falling in love with the soundtrack. features some pretty fucked-up, visceral rock n'roll, the way rock n'roll is supposed to be. simply brilliant !!!!!! P.S. Notes on the Soundtrack: If the "Origin of Love"doesn't make you wanna sing or "the angry inch" probe you to dance and jump till you break your neck... then there must be absolutely someting wrong with you. LoL

there is only one rule of the fight club you should know of: don't miss this film.