The above being stated, I had the pleasure of seeing this film in theaters for the first time along with a couple other lucky folks, as it was never released in the US until recently. The movie itself is Godard at his most obscure and deconstructed, at least I think so. Names and conversations disappear under the din seemingly arbitrarily placed sounds and silence. Anna Karina looks stunning as she did, and the cinematography is simply perfect, awash in red, white and blue almost comically.
Also, I really enjoy the packaging, designed by John Hardy. It is a simply approach but one that really captures the feeling and focus of this bizarre film. The use of the staggered image, as simple a device as it is, perfectly encapsulates the feeling you experience while watching this film. There is one scene specifically where Anna Karina is sitting at a table in a restaurant awaiting to be unhand-cuffed and the wallpaper behind her is askew, seemingly aligned by a blind man. This tiny architectural detail really struck me when I saw the movie originally, and I even wrote down a note about it, as I was considering using something like that in my Virginia Woolf Poster Project. So it is really neat to see that element used in the stellar packaging for this challenging film. Once again the Criterion Collection wows with it's discerning in packaging. Great work all around.
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