(2001)
4
Tom Vick
A return to a more conventional (though fractured) narrative, In Praise of Love is one of Jean-Luc Godard's most sad, beautiful, and accessible films. Its French title, Éloge de l'amour, translates literally to "Eulogy for Love," which implies that it's not so much about praising love as mourning its passing, and more accurately conveys the film's overwhelmingly melancholy tone than the English title, In Praise of Love, does. It is divided into two sections which pivot on the death of a young woman (Cécile Camp) that Edgar (Bruno Putzulu), a director, has searched out to star in a film he is trying to make depicting what he calls the four stages of love as portrayed by three couples of differing ages. The first part of Éloge de l'amour, filmed in black-and-white in Paris locations, recalls Godard's classic early '60s work while making references to a host of other films including The Matrix, Robert Bresson's Pickpocket, and Samira Makhmalbaf's The Apple. The second part, which flashes back two years to the time when Edgar first met the woman (referred to only as "elle"), is shot in a seaside town on digital video, in ravishing, hyper-saturated colors that evoke Fauvist landscape paintings. This section of the film centers on an elderly couple, veterans of the French Resistance who are selling the rights to their story to Steven Spielberg in order to stave off bankruptcy. Godard's hatred of Spielberg is legendary. The second part of Éloge de l'amour illustrates the depth of his contempt in ways that he has only made glancing references to previously. Like Godard's other films, this one is a thicket of ideas, with constant, swirling conversations about art, philosophy, and politics. The incredible sadness that suffuses it comes partly from the death of the heroine, but more from a kind of resignation on Godard's part that the forces of commercialism and imperialism that he has consistently railed against beginning with his fiery, politically radical late '60s films, may have finally destroyed the ideals he cares so much about. History, like any other commodity, is for sale to the highest bidder. Éloge de l'amour feels like the wistful admission by an aging revolutionary that the war he is fighting might finally be lost. Ironically, it's that very sense of hopelessness that makes this film so moving and memorable.
releases for In Praise of Love on AllMovie
In Praise of Love (2001)
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Title/Studio |
Release Date |
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In Praise of Love
New Yorker Video
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July 22, 2003 |
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Eloge del Amore
Optimum
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March 25, 2002 |
