La Chinoise Details

[Highly rated reviewer]

A study in red, blue and yellow

Just looking at the images would be one way to approach this film. Mainly interiors in primary colours they are very pleasing on the eye. And as always, Raoul Coutard's camerawork is quite ravishing. There are no Chinese in the film but the film introduces us to a Maoist cell of French students planning a terrorist asassination. Jean-Luc Godard's students are young burgeoisie who perform their ideological exercises with a worrying lack of regard for the human consequences. Godard seems a little frightened of these politically motivated youngsters, and he brings on the veteran radical Francis Jeanson to counter their terrorism in a wonderfully filmed train compartment. Prophetically, a year after the film was made Godard joined the student protesters on the barricades. All this looks a bit obscure now to the modern audience and may leave you puzzled and frustrated. Worth making the effort because what is still interesting is the art of cinema itself and the way a variety of Godard's preoccupations resurface from earlier films: prostitution, the random nature of violence, the stages of a love affair. The scene where Veronique (Anne Wiazemsky) tells Jean-Pierre Leaud that she no longer loves him is classic Godard. Recommended to all fans of this great director. Newcomers to his work are advised to start with 'A bout de soufle'(Breathless) and work their way forward. A fascinating journey awaits all lovers of world cinema.

Good once you know what the film is based on.

The film is quite abstract. You have to realise that it's about 1968 in France and know a little about the history of France at that time to really know what the film is going on about. Once that's under control it's quite interesting but you definitely have to be in the mood to think to watch this film.