Nouvelle Vague

Sommet de la trop courte carrière de réalisateur de Marin Karmitz, dans la foulée de son implacable Camarades en 1969, Coup pour coup est sans doute un vrai bijou de mise en scène. Au-delà de l'uppercut politique, vigoureux coup de boule dans la prétention et le mépris patronal, c'est à un beau morceau de cinéma que Karmitz nous convie, forme d'apothéose avant de raccrocher la caméra. Hautement crédible et sans pathos, Coup pour coup s'impose en étourdissante démonstration de free cinema à la française. Tourné avec un souci pointilleux de réalisme, au cœur de son sujet, avec la complicité active d'ouvrières fortement impliquées, le film impose sa force visuelle comme un écho tranchant et farouche au ludisme de la Nouvelle Vague française…

An atypical film for director Peter Brook, who has never been known for his concern for the emotional crises of the bourgeois, this adaptation of Marguerite Duras's novel might qualify him as an honorary member of the Nouvelle Vague. The film stars Jeanne Moreau as Anne Desbaredes, a wealthy, bored housewife who believes she has witnessed a murder in a quayside bistro. Rushing to the scene of the crime, she strikes up a conversation with Chauvin (Jean-Paul Belmondo), an employee of her husband who also saw the crime. The troubled woman continues to return to the café, increasingly identifying herself with the murder victim and becoming obsessed with Chauvin..

Jules (Fernandel) is a wily French peasant who dallies with a local widow and enjoys spats with his fellow sheepherders. One day he comes across a hidden stash of money and throws a party for all his friends, making them jealous over his newfound fortune. Then he plays a worse trick on them by handing over the money to everyone, confounding their assumptions about their entrenched rivalry. In the end, Jules has the last laugh, because a close look at the currency reveals a startling new fact that sheds light on his strange behavior.

Anne, a student in Paris, becomes involved with a group of her brother's arty friends and gets sucked into a mystery involving Philip, an expatriate American escaping McCarthyism; Terry, a self-destructive femme fatale; theatre director Gerard; and Juan, a Spanish activist who apparently committed suicide, but was he murdered? Philip warns Anne that the forces that killed Juan will soon do the same to Gerard, who is struggling to rehearse Shakespeare's Pericles. Anne takes a part in the play in an attempt to help him and also discover why Juan died.

One of the world's most influential filmmakers and a leading figure of the Nouvelle Vague movement of the 60's, Jean-Luc Godard's works have transformed the face of cinema. 'Weekend' remains one of the most legendary, audacious and acclaimed films of his distinguished career. It follows a brickering, scheming bourgeois couple who leave Paris for the French countryside to claim an inheritence by nefarious means. Almost immediately, they become entangled in a cataclysmic traffic jam, which is just the beginning of a journey fraught with violent and dangerous encounters : rape, murder, pillage and even cannibalism. Famed for its virtuoso cinematography -including a stunning ten-minute tracking shot- Godard's dystopian road movie is a ferocious attack on consumerism. (– DVD Cover)