After the ban of Le Petit Soldat, Godard was practically forced to come up with sort of a crowd-pleaser, since another gloomy character portrait with political undertones might well follow its predecessors faith. And Une Femme est une Femme is strangely just that: Godard going "mainstream". Godard "selling out". A comedy. A musical. In technicolor. With all the usual romantic shenanigans of Hollywood. Oh boy...However frustrating it may sound - Une Femme est une Femme is the first film where Godard accomplishes to fully realize his ambitions. Godard takes an idea from mainstream filmmaking and turns it into a semi-Avant Garde romp, which includes him breaking the fourth wall repeatedly, addressing his own and Truffaut's career (in one scene, Belmondo turns around to face a suddenly present Jeanne Moreau just to ask her how the shoot of Jules et Jim is coming along) and some of the most striking usage of color ever seen in a film.
The story of the film is actually quite pointless. We are introduced to an exotic dancer (Karina - today we'd call her a stripper), her boyfriend (Brialy) and his best friend (Belmondo). The dancer wants to have a child. Her boyfriend isn't very keen on this idea, thus leading the woman to approach his best friend to sleep with her. Chaos ensues, fronts vary, and in the end it's all back to where it began, more or less.
This makes it especially hard to point out the many amazing traits of this film - there are enough Godard's with a striking characterization or plot to watch apart from this light comedy. Most of the film has been made up in a matter of minutes. A mess of improvised acts, childish games and immature behavior. Not to mention the songs that could be straight out of any random Hollywood musical. So why bother?
One big reason is Anna Karina. After her rather small involvement in Le Petit Soldat, Godard allows her to fully explore her ambitions here, singing, dancing, goofing around, flirting and being gorgeous all around. It is her charm that carries most of the film, and her voice that shouts "Camera! Lights! Action!" over the titles in the first minute, and her girlish spleens allow the viewer to identify with her in a film mostly comprised of caricatures.
Another reason is Godard's visual style. It's not only the striking use of color and the great cinematography, but also his ability to supply his audience with information on characters and places without explaining them. One example for this is the girls neighbor who seemingly owns the single phone of the house. Every time the girl rings on her door, the neighbor opens just to let another different man (or is it costumer?) get out of her apartment. Some more can be observed in the couple in front of the house that seemingly never stops to make out, or in the run down, curiously empty and gloomy strip local. It's important to note that fellow Nouvelle Vague director Jacques Demy came, some years later, up with his own re-imagination of the musical genre, in which he took the elements provided by Godard and exaggerated them into what can only be summarized as a saccharine dreamscape. Like Demy or not, it's obvious that Godard provided food for thought just how far the musical genre can be stretched, further allowing artists like Baz Luhrman 40 years later to build upon his ideas.
But the main attraction here is Godard's amazing eye for experimentation, which allows him to come up with one striking and insane idea after another. Be it title cards, the aforementioned fourth wall breaking, the actors improvising or bursting into songs, or the wide array of ideas that Godard came up with on the spot. Near the end, the couple refuses to talk to another, lying in bed silently, refusing any kind of communication. Thus, the girl switches on the light, carries the lamp over to a book shelve, picks one up and returns to the bed, to give her boyfriend the book, insulting him through its title. The scene continues with each picking up a different book, the two characters communication by hurling books at each other.
Une Femme est une Femme is the first film where Godard finds his own language, which he went on to apply with every future film over the course of at least the next ten years. It is easy to watch and very entertaining, without using any of its artistic merit. It's one of those rare examples where an artist achieves to both woe his audience with his artistic vision and to entertain them. The film was - of course - highly successful, and is a stepping stone of Godard's career, which allowed him to continue with his cinematic experimentation in his next film, which once again would be a turn of 180 degrees in theme and style, and allow Karina to further proof that she was one of the most exciting actresses of her generation.
FINAL VERDICT: 9/10 - amazing, has to be seen!
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