Week - End (1967)
Un Film de Jean-Luc Godard
This is a scathing attack by Jean-Luc Godard on man's obsession with the automobile and other material rewards. Godard had this profound insight of road rage in 1967, and with our roads abounding with road rage nowadays, this film has some meaning, albeit exaggerrated. It tells the story of a surreal journey an obnoxious Paris couple take via car to Normandy. But the trip is disrupted by traffic jams, hostility, violence and anarchy.
Some of the scenes are like after a war, with all the burning vehicles and bodies strewn about the roads and littering the way. Anger is never far away in any scene in this film. People are uncivilised and patience has completely dissolved. But it's also humourous, and has a surreal Buņuel-like feel to it in parts. It is a pessimistic view, and frequently the film damns itself by saying it's lost in the Cosmos and it belongs on the scrapheap. But it is a brilliant exploration of the decay and deterioration of materialism. It's certainly one of the great movies.
"When Roland drives your Father home from the clinic... it would be nice if they both died in an accident."
A road rage attack.
A slight bump.
An altercation. A woman is sprayed with paint.
"Bastard! Shit-heap! Communist!"
Having a ball in a traffic jam.
A mishap.
The couple quarrel with others.
Lions & Monkeys.
Get out of the way.
Game of chess.
Sail.
Accident.
Tractor crash victim.
"Grotty peasants like you are clapped into jail along with their twitty tractors."
"Godard's most poetic film to date, somewhere between Swift and Samuel Beckett, alternately violent and tender, humourous and cruel." - Jan Dawson, Sight and Sound
"The most frightening, exciting and challenging film I have ever seen." - Roger Wood, Movie
"A picture of mankind after western civilisation has run its course." - Paul Mayersburg, New Society
"Weekend is Godard's vision of hell, and it ranks with the visions of the greatest." - Pauline Kael, New Yorker
"Weekend is Godard's personal statement, implacably savage and frequently brilliant, on modern times." - Barry Norman, Daily Mail
