In Le Livre d’Image, Jean-Luc Godard recycles existing images (films, documentaries, paintings, television archives, etc.), quotes excerpts from books, uses fragments of music. The driving force is poetic rhyme, the association or opposition of ideas, the aesthetic spark through editing, the keystone. The author performs the work of a sculptor. The hand, for this, is essential. He praises it at the start. “There are the five fingers. The five senses. The five parts of the world (…). The true condition of man is to think with his hands. Jean-Luc Godard composes a dazzling syncopation of sequences, the surge of which evokes the violence of the flows of our contemporary screens, taken to a level of incandescence rarely achieved. Crowned at Cannes, the last Godard is a shock film, with twilight beauty.
"Here is a family of average French people in front of their television. Elsewhere, they are Palestinian fighters filmed before the massacres of Black September." (JLG, 1976). "We came here to study this: to learn, to learn lessons, if possible to record these lessons, to then broadcast them here, or elsewhere in the world. Almost a year ago, two of us came to investigate the Democratic Front. Then another went to Fath. We read the texts and programs. As French Maoists, we decided to make the film with Fath whose title is Until Victory. We let the Palestinians , during the film, themselves say the word: "Revolution". But the true title of the film is Methods of Thought and Work of the Palestinian Liberation Movement." (JLG, Manifesto, July 1970)
Ben Santhanaraj journeys to Sri Lanka to rekindle his relationship with Suzanne Hopper, an American NGO worker, after a long separation. But when Suzanne's boss demands she work during their vacation, their love is tested by a dilemma: desire versus duty. As Suzanne struggles with the responsibilities of her job, Ben tries everything to revive their intimacy, leading to candid conversations and chaotic twists as New Year’s Eve - and Ben’s departure - looms ahead.
Fourty-six years since the release of Le mépris, Jean-Luc Godard watches the film again to comment on it and its tumultuous production. Featuring interviews with: Jacques Rozier, Alain Bergala, Michel Piccoli, Charles Bitsch.
Rebels on the surface, retrogrades in essence. “The Ridiculists”, a duo composed of the eccentric and explosive, “The Ridiculer”, and his faithful squirer, “The Talker”, roam through the Brazilian capital breaking into homes, committing murders, as they create a legion of blind supporters along the way.
