La Chinoise
Winner of the Venice Film Festival
Paris, 1967. Disillusioned by their suburban lifestyles, a group of middle-class students, led by Guillaume (Jean-Pierre Leaud) and Veronique (Anne Wiazemsky), form a small Maoist cell and plan to change the world by any means necessary. After studying the growth of communism in China, the students decide they must use terrorism and violence to ignite their own revolution.
Member Reviews
class struggle never ends - sooz
it was quite by luck La Chinoise showed up in the mail from zip. this week given the current occupation campaigns going on. La Chinoise uses the style of Masculin/Feminin and takes it one step further. plot is almost none existent, the interview-style narrative is even more pronounced and again Godard doesn't shy away from including the camera / camera man in the frame. it isn't a particularly easy or engaging movie to watch. a group of French students on summer break sit about their Paris apartment discussing marxist-leninist ideals - and in particular - the ideals expressed in Mao's little red book. a lot of it comes across as rhetoric, and naive rhetoric at that. i mean what do these students know about living under Mao? still every once in a while their discussion boils down to a conclusion that rings true. like ... 'a revolution cannot be elegant. it cannot be polite. it is one class over-throwing another' ... or ... 'just ideas -justice- comes out of the class struggle'. bits of the narrative like this stuck with me as they seem applicable to the political movement we see happening right now in cities all over the world. i don't know i would have found La Chinoise very interesting if not for this parallel. it was definitely good timing.Brilliant, bursting with ideas - jagfilm
Watching a Godard film is unlike watching anything else. Bursting with ideas, wit, stunning images and outrageous editing Godard is an antidote to the stale, rote formulas of Hollywood and "La Chinoise" is no different. The "plot" follows four students who plot a socialist revolutionist during their summer vacation. Brimming with political ideals, screeds against American imperialism and staggeringly gorgeous shots of his leads, Godard once again constructs a literate, contradictory, audacious, bizarre and thoroughly entertaining film. Bold, brilliant.
Member Reviews
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class struggle never ends - sooz
it was quite by luck La Chinoise showed up in the mail from zip. this week given the current occupation campaigns going on. La Chinoise uses the style of Masculin/Feminin and takes it one step further. plot is almost none existent, the interview-style narrative ...Brilliant, bursting with ideas - jagfilm
Watching a Godard film is unlike watching anything else. Bursting with ideas, wit, stunning images and outrageous editing Godard is an antidote to the stale, rote formulas of Hollywood and "La Chinoise" is no different. The "plot" follows four students who ...