In Praise of Love

Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Year Released: 2001
Rating: 2.0

Pre-9/11 rumination by cinematic iconoclast Godard about, among other things, the decline of romance, the arts, society, the change in movies from film to video etc., and a portion of the blame is placed on the United States - honestly, though, like some of JLG's earliest and most impulsive films (like the ones that felt like they were shot in four days - Le Petit Soldat, for one), it's somewhat hard to follow his thesis, so it could be about a lot of things. I found myself caught up in the steady drift of images and ignoring the director's precious utterances and didn't find myself as perturbed as most by the attacks on Steven Spielberg (people well aware of JLG's grouchiness should be used to such provocations and realize that he's both serious and not-serious). It gets progressively more enthralling as it goes along, turning into a severely tinted digital video dream world, and it is in this last third that the pictures speak louder than the words.