FILM SOCIALISM — 2011

by

Welcome!

Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does.ColeSmithey.comThis ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel.

Get cool rewards when you click on the button to pledge your support through Patreon.

Thanks a lot acorns!

Your kind generosity keeps the reviews coming!

ColeSmithey.com

 

ColeSmithey.comGoddard's vaguely accessible collage-essay on the ennui of the modern existential moment, "Socialism" is an inarticulate bestiary of bullshittery. The film's overarching theme of its repressed social condition derives from a caption that informs us "the bastards are sincere." A lot of two and three-word slogans come at regular intervals to express Goddard's cryptically coded editorial political commentary.

Movie Reviews - 'Film Socialisme' - Godard, In Fine Glitchy Form : NPR

"Palestine Access," "Love Yourself Silly," and "Napoleon Burning Moscow" are some of the ideas Goddard splinters apart with characters speaking just such stilted language. Much of the film's first-act action takes place on a mammoth gambling cruise ship.

FILM SOCIALISM | Wild Bunch

Rock poet Patti Smith shows up briefly — she's onboard with her longtime guitarist Lenny Kaye. Inexplicably, Patti Smith only shows up in a couple of brief scenes where she barely speaks. Patti's subplot is never returned to again even if her presence is the only thing that promises a soothing poetic voice to augment Goddard's revved-up barrage of international media-styled fictional situations imposed with some touch of political anarchism.

ColeSmithey.com

An obligatory visit to the modern-day Odessa steps is intercut with a clip from Eisenstein's "Battleship Potemkin." "Socialism" might work as a long piece of installation art, but it doesn't hold up as a prime example of experimental cinema.

Rated R. 109 mins. 2 Stars

Cozy Cole

Cole Smithey on Patreon

FEATURED VIDEO
COLE SMITHEY’S CLASSIC CINEMA
La Grande Bouffe
Rotten Tomatoes
keyboard_arrow_up