Band of Outsiders [Bande à part] (Godard, 1964)

Band of Outsiders [Bande à part] (Jean-Luc Godard, 1964)

Godard and I have a very troubled relationship. I don't like him and I bet he doesn't like me much. It's not like I haven't gave him any chance. I watched his "Alphaville" (2/5), "Breathless" (1/5), and "Pierrot le fou" (1/5), and as you can see from the ratings in the brackets of the titles, I did not like any of them. Watching "Band of Outsiders" might seem masochistic of me, but surprisingly to all and to the benefit of Godard's reputation among my multiple personalities, I enjoyed "Band of Outsiders".

Godard's films are always about the characters trying to act cool, everyone smokes, and they all try to never smile. It is like the whole thing is a parody of French films. But while "Band of Outsiders" repeats the same, it actually works. It IS cool. A Variety review stats that the film "is the Godard film for people who don't much care for Godard: a proto-slacker mood piece about two nondescript guys trying to persuade a beautiful girl to help them commit a robbery." So, maybe, that's why I liked it, and that's why it has its influence obvious on other films. The film's spontaneous dancing scene is claimed to have influenced Tarantino in his "Pulp Fiction" and the characters running through the Louvre was done in "The Dreamers".

If Godard had done more films like this, I can imagine myself being a huge Godard fan. "Band of Outsiders" defines coolness and sexiness.

4/5