"Bande à part" is one of the main movies of "Novelle Vague", the French cinematic movement between the end of the Fifties and the Sixties.
This films belongs to the best Jean-Luc Godard period, when his movies still had a strong story and were not politicized yet.
Arthur, Franz and Oldile form a band different from the other ones... The title means that, because these people don't follow the stereotype of the gangster -actually they're ordinary people who decide to commit a theft.
The film is very improvisational and made almost like a documentary; Godard doesn't follow some technical cinematic rules like (for example) clean editing, elegant shots, and frames without too much light reflections or contrasts. It's a small film made by a small crew, in real locations.
The sound is also very "dirt": the movie is not dubbed and it's difficult to understand dialogs -although I speak French fluently, I had to watch the film on DVD with the help of subtitles!
"Bande à part" mixes many genres. We have a voice off which accompanies us during the tale; the action is shown in a way similar to the documentary, as I said. At a certain moment the story becomes very tragic, but everything finishes with a happy ending, like a Hollywood movie! All the elements are overthrown.
Many Godard intuitions were used later by different directors like Lars Von Trier and Quentin Tarantino. For us it's interesting, because we see that many things we thought as new were made already 40 years ago.
This films belongs to the best Jean-Luc Godard period, when his movies still had a strong story and were not politicized yet.
Arthur, Franz and Oldile form a band different from the other ones... The title means that, because these people don't follow the stereotype of the gangster -actually they're ordinary people who decide to commit a theft.
The film is very improvisational and made almost like a documentary; Godard doesn't follow some technical cinematic rules like (for example) clean editing, elegant shots, and frames without too much light reflections or contrasts. It's a small film made by a small crew, in real locations.
The sound is also very "dirt": the movie is not dubbed and it's difficult to understand dialogs -although I speak French fluently, I had to watch the film on DVD with the help of subtitles!
"Bande à part" mixes many genres. We have a voice off which accompanies us during the tale; the action is shown in a way similar to the documentary, as I said. At a certain moment the story becomes very tragic, but everything finishes with a happy ending, like a Hollywood movie! All the elements are overthrown.
Many Godard intuitions were used later by different directors like Lars Von Trier and Quentin Tarantino. For us it's interesting, because we see that many things we thought as new were made already 40 years ago.