Le Petit Soldat

During the early 60s a film movement began that eventually took hold in all countries but started in France. Dubbed the New French Wave the style of film making attempted to use new techniques, to toss aside traditional ways of making movies and to attempt to create something completely new and different.

During the Algerian war for independence from France, a young Frenchman living in Geneva who belongs to a right-wing terrorist group and a young woman who belongs to a left-wing terrorist group meet and fall in love. Complications ensue when the man is suspected by the members of his terrorist group of being a double agent.

I think and feel that this is Godard's masterpiece. I watched it in memory of Anna Karina, but it was Michel Subor who made me realise that he was the best of Godard's actors.

Stylistically it's quite innovative for it's time, which will be obvious when considering it's a work of the French New Wave. The fact that the outside noise was edited out in order for a greater deal of focus on the actual conversation worked really effectively, and really got me more interested in what the characters were saying.

Le Petit Soldat (The Little Soldier) was shot in 1960 but was shelved until its release in 1963 after director Jean-Luc Godard had released his controversial groundbreaker Breathless, his unique little "musical" A Woman is a Woman, and his somber and moody Vivre Sa Vie. One wonders how Le Petit Soldat, originally intended for a 1960 release, would've fared as Godard's directorial debut or even sophomore effort, as the film makes a daring attempt at commenting on the, at the time, ongoing Algerian War along with making use of scenes involving torture and misogynistic undertones.

Bruno Forrestier (Michel Subor) is a 26 year-old Frenchman working in Geneva with links to extreme-right terrorists. Set in the background of the Algerian war, he cannot return to France as he has deserted but cannot remain in Geneva, where two terrorist groups suspect him of being a double-agent and shadow him menacingly throughout the film.

In the past couple of weeks, I've been on a Godard kick where I've seen "Alphaville", "My Life to Live" and "Breathless", along with "Le Petit Soldat." I don't think that it reflects all that badly on the latter movie to say that it's not really in a league with the first three, all of which are near-masterpieces at the very least.

'Le Petit Soldat" is Jean-Luc Godard's second film after his exciting 'Breathless'. Banned by France, it came out a year after the end of the Algerian war and creation of Algeria in 1962.

Godard's first explicitly political work - produced directly following the release of his debut film, the celebrated À bout de soufflé (1960), and banned almost immediately by the French government until 1963 - is a small-scale B-picture with serious intentions and a scattering of the director's typical verve and energy. In tone, it is somewhat characteristic of the approach of the early French New Wave, and of Godard's films of this period; calling to mind the aforementioned debut and his short films, Tous les garçons s'appellent Patrick (1959) and Charlotte et son Jules (1960), with the elements of cinema vérité inspired editing and cinematography techniques - capturing the action in a hurried and uncomplicated approach of hand-held cameras and unsophisticated mise-en-scene - and featuring a few early experiments with the use of sound design and music that would become more refined throughout the director's subsequent projects; leading to the year-zero effect of Week End (1967) and his exile from "mainstream" cinema until the early 1980's.