There are few - if any - films as devoid of anything interesting or exciting as Les Carabiniers. I don't know if Godard had any kind of fun making this film - maybe it was as much a chore to make as it is to sit through. It is surely Godard's worst film by a mile. So let's get this over with...The film opens with a text card, loosely explaining Godard's intentions. It then cuts to two men and their girlfriends in a hut, somewhere in a post-apocalyptic landscape. The four have meaningful names (Cleopatra for example), but not much comes of it.
Two soldiers arrive, with a letter, informing the two men that they are drafted. At first, they are not thrilled by the idea of going to war, but when the soldiers tell them that soon, they can come back and carry "all the riches of the world with them" and give them to their wives, the two agree and leave.
We are then presented with various montages of the two fighting - walking through post-apocalyptic landscapes, shooting people, occasionally fighting or talking to generals. The only narration present is provided through read-out letters of the two men. Accompanied is all this by some ugly shots, terrible bothering a-tonal music and a washed out look (which came from the old film stock Godard chose to deliberately make the film ugly).
So what happens? Not much. There are two or three scenes of interest (one being an execution, another is one of the two men going to a cinema for the first time, walking towards the silver screen and touching it), but all in all, the film has not much to say apart from the usual. War is bad and gets the worst out of people. Soldiers are exploited. Both sides are equally wrong. Nothing new or interesting here.
War concludes with the men returning home. As their partners demand the riches of the world promised in the beginning, they are offered thousands of postcards. Godard then goes on to have his protagonists throw the postcards into the air, describing them... for twenty minutes. Ouch. The film ends with the four walking into a city - turns out their side has lost the war. The two are thus smoothly executed by a former companion (as a text-card informs us).
Maybe money ran out, or maybe Godard already thought of his next venture (apparently, Hollywood had called). It is evident that politics are not Godard's best friends, rendering Les Carabiniers a disaster. One critic remarked the film was "hell for the first hour" but "exiting to think of afterwards" - ironically, the film only lasts about 70 minutes. So this one is "for Godard completists only", and even in that context I can't imagine anybody liking it.
Thankfully, Hollywood had called Godard before realizing this film. It seemed they were interested in funding his next film. Thankfully, Godard agreed.
FINAL VERDICT: 3/10 - a disaster, avoid at all cost!
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