Summary:
A secret agent from The Outlands ventures into Alphaville on a three part mission that concludes in the destruction of Alphaville’s creator.
My Thoughts:
In my attempt to become a more learn’d film buff and indeed earn some “film guy street cred,” I decided I would start getting some classic Criterion Collection type films into my typical movie watching rotation. I meant to start with the Samurai Trilogy, which I picked up from the library, but then Netflix DVD (yes I have Netflix DVD) sent me Alphaville, and I decided to kick my adventure off with this film instead.
I can’t remember exactly how I came across this film, maybe it was suggested to me by some algorithm because of my interest in things like Blade Runner and The Terminator. Described as “laying the foundation” for movies such as those, how could I not be reeled in when you throw films like that into the mix? I’m sure you can imagine how eager I was to get my butt in a seat and watch the grand daddy of some of my favorite sci-fi films. However, I had discovered a reason to take pause.
This film is directed by Jean-Luc Godard, the French-Swiss director known for his unconventional filmmaking style that, along with other directors in the same vein, would come to be collectively known as the French New Wave film movement. For those unfamiliar, the French New Wave style usually meant a quick, portable, documentary-esque look to a film, consisting of qualities such as long, uncut tracking shots, improvised dialogue, and shoestring budgets among other things. As far as I’m concerned, French New Wave is synonomous with trying hard to make it look like you didn’t try very hard. It’s a very “filmmakers filmmaking” style that serves more for the filmmakers themselves than it does a typical, everyday viewer. But I digress, we aren’t here to discuss the merits of filmmaking techniques, we are here to talk about Alphaville!
(Spoiler Warning)
We start with our undercover agent, Lemmy Caution, which is about as ridiculous of a name as you can get for an undercover agent. Ol’ Lemmy is on his way to Alphaville, which is a city controlled by a sentient computer called Alpha 60. His first order of business is to find a missing agent named Henri Dickson. Mr. Caution finds Dickson, but he ain’t lookin’ so good. Needless to say he dies making sweet love to a brainwashed lady. And when I say “making sweet love” I mean gently petting a girl while exclaiming how much he loves her. French cinema is weird.
Our detective/agent/undercover Mr. Caution moves on to his next task: finding Professor von Braun, the creator of Alpha 60. Along the way he meets von Braun’s daughter, Natacha. They fall in love because a man and a woman can’t exist in a room without falling in love. Through this love, Natacha is introduced to emotion. You see, Alphaville, by design, is void of emotion and unpredictability by way of assimilation. Art, poetry, sadness, love, these are all illogical according to Alpha 60, so it is not allowed. Anyone caught acting illogically is rounded up and dispatched. So we find the professor and it’s pretty clear that he’s too far gone, so it’s time to shoot him dead.
Now it’s time to deal with that pesky Alpha 60. Using his incredible wit, Lemmy Caution, in talking with Alpha 60, fries it’s logic processors and circuitry by posing a riddle that the poor artificial intelligence couldn’t hope to comprehend. Mission accomplished! Now it’s time for Lemmy Caution to blow this joint and head for home, but not without his dame, Natacha. It’s revealed that she too came from somewhere else and was assimilated in Alphaville at some point in her life. Through Lemmy’s undeniable affection towards her, she slowly understands the censored world of Alphaville, and that concepts such as love are not as foreign to her as they seem. Because of this, on their way back to “The Outlands”, from which Lemmy Caution has journeyed, she is able to inform Mr. Caution that she loves him.
If I’m being honest, and I try to be honest here, at the beginning of this film I felt like I was watching someone’s film school thesis project. The hand-held “quick and dirty” shooting style, the use of real places in France as the set, no futuristic looking props or costumes to be seen all served to make the movie feel cheap. Eventually you do get used to this, or at least I did, and it stopped bothering me so much after the first fifteen minutes. Then you start noticing the “film-makery” bits that other filmmakers will point out to you as “an amazing example of artistic expression” or something. For instance, the first shot shows Lemmy Caution going into his hotel, checking in at the front desk, going up the elevator and being shown to his room. This is all one unedited shot that lasts about four minutes in total. If you just read that sentence and you got all hot under the collar then I probably don’t need to convince you any further. However some might not care at all. I’ll leave that up to you as to your feelings on that one.
The themes of this movie are perhaps it’s saving grace. Someone decided to program a computer to run a city that would make the decisions for it’s citizens based on what’s logical. That’s both cold and inventive, although it’s not really shown as to why this is the way things are. Alphaville exists as a cautionary tale about the dangers of a dystopian world where we aren’t allowed to feel emotions because that would be illogical, but there’s no logical explanation as to why Alpha 60 and Alphaville need to exist, no need driving it’s existence or indeed it’s creation. Maybe that’s asking too much from a film that, according to Wikipedia, the source of all great knowledge, had a treatment written for it that was basically thrown out and most of the story improvised.
Verdict:
Maybe I should have known when I saw the name Jean-Luc Godard that I probably wouldn’t like this film, but I’m willing to step into the unknown and give a film a chance if I think there’s something to latch on to. The promise of a science fiction film that is a fore-bearer to iconic films of today was too good to pass up, but it might have also set an expectation to which a French New Wave film from the 60’s couldn’t possibly live up. Anyone tired of conventional film-making might enjoy this one, but there’s not much meat on the bone for science fiction enthusiasts looking to get lost in a strange new world.
Also, it’s hard for me to take your movie seriously when your main character shoots a lighter with a pistol to light it. French cinema is kinda weird.
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