Most of the time, I do not watch Godard, because that would be maddening; instead, I roll up my sleeves and work at watching him. It's almost always rewarding, and it's much less frustrating than trying to remain entertained.
"Tout Va Bien" is not an entertainment – it's a sometimes funny look at how humanists deal with the aftermath of class struggle, the aftermath of the presence of the real possibility of change in society. Set and made in 1974, this film looks at the legacy of the student-led May 1968 Movement. What did this Spring of Revolution leave behind as seed, particularly for the upwardly mobile intellectuals who embraced its concepts without sacrificing their own materialism? To find out, we have to watch our hero and heroine, played by Yves Montand and Jane Fonda, as they negotiate their relationships with one another in the light of their politically committed past and the professionally unsatisfactory compromises that each of them are being asked to make in the present.
The main action of the film is the seizure of a food factory by its workers, and the consequent detention of our couple together with the workers' intended hostage, the factory manager. Through this device, the film raises issues of workers' rights, women's rights and the role of trade unions in the free market workplace. It also allows us to see snippets of an actual production line, and memorable glimpses of our stars making sausages and chain-sawing through pig carcasses.
It's very strange, but precisely because Montand and Fonda seem so cameo-esque in their execution of these tasks, the work itself becomes more tangible, more real. However, this is not to say that this film is a work of realism. Indeed, it's the opposite of that. The film itself begins with a series of shots showing the cheques that were written to fund it. Throughout the film, our couple remain "He" and "She". They have no other names. At times, they speak directly to the camera. Others in the story do the same. It is all part of a strategy to never hide the work's representational nature. This is, Godard says, a film, and films are made in order to look at issues. In turn, this honesty of approach, this confession that it is a performance that we are watching, allows us to concentrate on the questions raised rather more than the characters that raise them. That's okay, because it's not a film about them, it's a film about us. About you and me and this world. And though it was made nearly forty years ago, what it has to say about gender roles, power, economics and politics is as fresh as the blood on all their aprons.
"Tout Va Bien" is not an entertainment – it's a sometimes funny look at how humanists deal with the aftermath of class struggle, the aftermath of the presence of the real possibility of change in society. Set and made in 1974, this film looks at the legacy of the student-led May 1968 Movement. What did this Spring of Revolution leave behind as seed, particularly for the upwardly mobile intellectuals who embraced its concepts without sacrificing their own materialism? To find out, we have to watch our hero and heroine, played by Yves Montand and Jane Fonda, as they negotiate their relationships with one another in the light of their politically committed past and the professionally unsatisfactory compromises that each of them are being asked to make in the present.
The main action of the film is the seizure of a food factory by its workers, and the consequent detention of our couple together with the workers' intended hostage, the factory manager. Through this device, the film raises issues of workers' rights, women's rights and the role of trade unions in the free market workplace. It also allows us to see snippets of an actual production line, and memorable glimpses of our stars making sausages and chain-sawing through pig carcasses.
It's very strange, but precisely because Montand and Fonda seem so cameo-esque in their execution of these tasks, the work itself becomes more tangible, more real. However, this is not to say that this film is a work of realism. Indeed, it's the opposite of that. The film itself begins with a series of shots showing the cheques that were written to fund it. Throughout the film, our couple remain "He" and "She". They have no other names. At times, they speak directly to the camera. Others in the story do the same. It is all part of a strategy to never hide the work's representational nature. This is, Godard says, a film, and films are made in order to look at issues. In turn, this honesty of approach, this confession that it is a performance that we are watching, allows us to concentrate on the questions raised rather more than the characters that raise them. That's okay, because it's not a film about them, it's a film about us. About you and me and this world. And though it was made nearly forty years ago, what it has to say about gender roles, power, economics and politics is as fresh as the blood on all their aprons.