Village of robot-people.

Alphaville  (Jean-Luc Godard, 1965)

I don't know what to make of Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville, or rather it's quite immature for me to really nitpick the director's brain considering that this is the first time I'm seeing a Godard film. I came across an uploaded Godard film, perhaps one of his last pieces, upon keying in directors names on YouTube. The film was Nouvelle Vague which means 'new wave' in French which, as I mentioned in my first Truffaut article, the film movement that radicalized traditional French cinema and ushered in directors like Godard, Francois Truffaut and Alan Resnais.

At times it has the mood of a lousy spy thriller. It's eminent from the score and the look of the screen which is acrid and void of emotions. I would later learn that this feeling is valid. We are introduced to the main character, Detective Lemmy Caution (Eddie Constantine) who is viscious and cold as his surroundings. This is very evident when he aggressively withdraws his luggage from the hands of the concierge who would normally assist. This is again repeated when he encounters a lady personnel who'd assist him inside his room. The hotel attendant would then undress to her undies and prostitute herself to Lemmy who is not a bit moved by her coaxing. While the lady is soaked in the tub, a trespasser suddenly appears on screen attacking him. He shoots but misses until the attacker escapes. Of course this is a boggler, and we would later learn this is a sick 'test'.

As we later follow Caution, the plot thickens and then we realize that it is actually science-fiction inspired. It turns out that he is commissioned to investigate a series of disappearances in Alphaville, which as the series of events would unfold, is no ordinary town. Society is controlled by a super-computer called Alpha 60. The people have been extracted of emotions that any tinge of feeling would be considered illogical and would constitute a crime. This would amount to summary execution where the person in question stands in a swimming pool platform shot in firing line or drowned to death. This inability to feel is made evident in the person of Natasha von Braun (Anna Karina) whose first meeting with Caution seemed dubious. Natasha was sent by co-secret agent who mysteriously dies. She is also the daughter of Professor von Braun, the evil mastermind.

Then towards the end, it shifts to thinly developed love story where Natasha is showing signs of 'alpha-deviation' — she is starting to develop feelings for Caution. Before she gets anywhere near extinction, Caution tries his wits out to save her and escape. It seems that Godard would want us to believe that in this mechanical universe love endures or rather love flourishes amidst the impossibility. But like the people of Alphaville, I cannot quite thresh out any connection because of the bombardment of absurd frenetic images. Or perhaps, Alphaville is really a combination of the three. But it was still a unique ride and Godard's ciematic vision is uncompromising. And for that, I think it lives up to the idealism espoused of the new wave directors.