gridoon2024 Review of Made in U.S.A

Made in U.S.A (1966)

Sometimes hilarious, often perplexing, and always very, very strange

[6/10 · 4 December 2022]

You can use a lot of words to try and descibe this film - weird, absurdist, bright, confusing, vague, dissociative, offbeat would be some of them - but really no words can descibe it; there is nothing quite like it out there (except other Godard films, probably). Godard has a reputation in some circles as being frightfully pretentious, and on the basis of this he is, but what makes his pretentiousness palatable - and even enjoyable at times - is his playfulness. The bar scene, in particular, is downright hilarious, as are two death scenes (!) which are intentionally hammed up, or other random bits of dialogue like "I am writing a novel that I will never finish and I will call it "The Unfinished Novel"!"). Anna Karina looks incredible as a female Humphrey Bogart, of sorts, and although she and Godard had separated at that time, I will venture a guess and say he was still in love with, ot at least obsessed by, her because few directors in film history have given their leading actress more, tighter and longer close-ups in a single movie. And it is easy to empathize with him: her face is hypnotic and fascinating. The film iself is a mixture of hypnotic, fascinating, beautiful and excruciating. There is a brilliantly executed running gag where the full name of a character is always obscured by a variety of random (and absurd) noises. And the singing interlude with Marianne Faithfull is strangely touching. Just don't attempt to figure out the "plot". **1/2 out of 4.