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For Ever Mozart

1996, Movie, NR, 84 mins

For Ever Mozart: Review

FOR EVER MOZART
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Looking for terms in which to describe Jean-Luc Godard's latest film, you can't help thinking of the way one of its characters describes philosophy: nothing at all, a thing one doesn't understand, or something in between. Actually four short films with a tenuous thematic connection, the movie's "action" revolves around the figure of the Director -- naturellement. In the first, a hilarious casting call is held for his latest film, The Fatal Bolero. In the second, he goes to Sarajevo with his politically motivated daughter, her cousin and his Muslim girlfriend; they intend, somewhat fatuously, to mount a production of Albert de Musset's 19th-century comedy of manners One Mustn't Play at Love. The Director decamps before reaching the city and the would-be producers travel on, only to be raped and shot by guerrillas. The third film features the Director back in France, shooting The Fatal Bolero; the troubled production falls apart when the lead actress fails to enunciate a simple word -- oui -- to his satisfaction. The fourth film is the simplest: The Director sits outside a recital hall listening to the music of Mozart. Godard's film is overflowing with ideas -- cinema works to replace our gaze with a world that is more in harmony with our desires; one is never innocent of what one can prevent -- but like the four segments here, he purposefully resists linking them together in any way that could be construed as "meaningful," other than to say that they all, somehow, involve the auteur. At times maddeningly obtuse and precipitously pretentious, at others remarkably moving and profound, this is, quite simply, a Godard film. And with its fine cast of relative unknowns and Christophe Pollack's exquisite cinematography, it's quite a beautiful one at that. leave a comment --Ken Fox
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