Le Mépris

Last Wednesday, we have discussed about the era of French New Wave. One of the known directors of this movement was Jean-Luc Godard. To fully understand this topic, we watched a film by Godard entitled "Le Mépris" or Contempt.

At first we were confused about the movie because of its multiple languages. Some characters talked in English, French. Italian, and German. But thanks to the subtitles, they made things easier for us to understand. At the start of the film, we noticed that instead of putting the credits into words, the credits were included through voice over. I think that is one of the styles of its director.

To be honest, I really didn't understand much about what was happening at first. But as I watched further I realized the flow of the story. Camille is married with his husband Paul Javal, a novelist and playwright, who was hired by Jeremy Prokosch to rewrite the script for a new movie about Ulysses. It was to be directed by the famous director Fritz Lang (played by himself). As the story progresses, Camille became aloof with her husband. The reason of their estrangement was not really specified, but it started after Camille was being left alone with Prokosch. She thought that her husband uses her as a present for Paul to have a better payment for the script.

The rest of the story goes with their dialogues and scenes about their conflict questioning their love for each other. Camille starts to drift away from her husband, making their relationship become strained. I really don't understand Camille, because she changes her mind at times. She loves Paul, but then she says she don't love him anymore. I think Paul was having a hard time on their relationship because I can feel that he really loves his wife. Their situation became worse when they came to Capri. As they work for the movie, Camille suddenly flirted with Prokosch, making it hard for Paul to win her back. I felt sorry for Paul, because he's trying so hard to make things work. Not knowing that its too late.

The movie ended tragically. Camille left Paul a note saying her last goodbye, it was sad really. As Camille and Prokosch were on their way to Rome, they died on an accident. 

The film was great, the director had a great job on the whole production of the film. The actors also portrayed their roles well, especially Brigitte Bardot who played Camille. Aside from the story, I was also impressed on how the film was made. It conveys a masterpice of French New Wave cinema. Even though there were times where I got confused on the story, at the end I realized what really happened and I learned that making a marriage work is hard especially when conflict comes on your way.