Notre Musique

Synopsis: Jean-Luc Godard, ever ready to follow a noble example, has modelled the structure of his new film-part drama, part documentary, though not a drama-documentary-on Dante. The first section, entitled "Hell," is a mashing-together of violence, shuffling clips of actual war into snatches of war movies; one longs to know how, or whether, Godard distinguishes between them, given that so much of his youthful work paid homage to Hollywood genres. The second, purgatorial part is the meat of the movie, following Godard himself around a shrouded Sarajevo, where he lectures on subjects dear to him-including the vision of Bernadette, no less-and where a young Israeli woman (played by Sarah Adler) with a story to tell tracks down the French ambassador. Last and harshest is the advent of heaven-a kitschy but placid paradise beside a lake, guarded by an American marine. The director's rage against conflict is hardly new, but none the less impassioned for that, and, despite the occasional false note (the intrusion of American Indians is too gauche to have the desired political effect), there are passages of autumnal sublimity that nobody but Godard could achieve. The soundtrack alone, the trove of a musical magpie, is worth a ticket.   Source: The New Yorker