Godard's Film Socialisme sets sail aboard a modern-day Titanic; hope you speak Navajo
by Michael Sicinski
Allow me to send up a flare. I cannot necessarily recommend Film Socialisme, the latest filmic/videographic/philosophical brief on the State of the Human Race by Swiss master Jean-Luc Godard, in the sense that I would unreservedly recommend other great films of recent times (e.g., A Separation; Guy Maddin’s upcoming Keyhole). This is because in some senses Film Socialisme is virtually an avant-garde experiment and therefore hardly classifiable in the same terms as most other movies. It is a near-masterpiece from one of our greatest living artists; adventuresome viewers who not only like to keep the pulse of what is happening in the world of international cinema, but think of themselves as having enough of a general commitment to what we might call “the aesthetic realm,” should make time to experience it, without a doubt.
But it must be said, like so many late efforts by idiosyncratic modernists unapologetically following their own beacon, Godard’s latest poses as many brain-battering challenges as pure, electric pleasures. (Think Finnegans Wake. Think Pound’s Cantos.) Essentially a three-part prose-poem on the state of Europe, Film Socialisme begins on a luxury cruise ship (the now-infamous Costa Concordia, in a bit of dark irony), where the usual decadent pursuits are offset with uniquely Godardian ones, like a public lecture by philosopher Alain Badiou. A cast of “characters” waxes epigrammatic, but the primary focus is “Goldberg,” an ex-Nazi who has stolen gold from various historical ports of call throughout Europe and the Middle East. (The recent discovery that Godard’s “neutral” Swiss homeland had actually fenced Nazi plunder seems to be a key subtext here.)
Part two takes us to dry land. A family-run service station is the site of a political struggle between the generations. Mom and Dad wonder why their children are rebelling against them, while the kids are forming their own autonomous district (or so it seems), a new language, and running (successfully!) for public office. Part three, the most conventional in its own way, takes the form of a personal essay, looking back at the lands addressed in part one — Palestine, Odessa, Greece, Naples, and Barcelona — in terms of the history of how they’ve been imaged, both in cinema and official documents of war.
Heady stuff, to be sure. If there is one thing that ties Godard’s musings together, it’s the recent economic crises in Europe, particularly Greece, and how “gold” and democracy no longer appear to be compatible entities. So in some sense, as Americans, watching Film Socialisme is a bit like eavesdropping on an intra-Continental conversation that pertains to us only indirectly. This may be why Godard chose to encode this partial exclusion in the very “translation” he authorized for the film.
Oh, yeah, about that. The movie is usually exhibited with fragmentary so-called “Navajo” subtitles, which leave about 70 percent of any given phrase untranslated in favor of declarative blurts such as "GIVE WATCH” and “GERMAN JEW BLACK.” (Full English subs are available on the DVD.) Remember: Godard wants us to experience confusion, to recognize the inadequacy of language in general, and translation in particular. And unlike so many subtitled films, we get to let go and luxuriate in the sumptuous images, confident that we’ll never get it all anyway. So have fun — but by all means, bring a lifejacket.
Comments (1)
Showing 1-1 of 1
