Monday, April 26, 2010

Alphaville

While one of his earliest films, Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville (1965) is unquestionably his masterpiece. Billed as science fiction upon its release, Alphaville is in reality packed to the brim with influences as disparate as Argentinian fantasist Jorge Luis Borges, American science fiction moralist Philip K. Dick, Rod Serling's Twilight Zone, and the surrealist movement spearheaded by Spanish nationals turned French citizens Salvador Dali and Luis Bunuel.

We fade in to Alphaville, a possibly futuristic city located (or perhaps comprising) a distant planet, located in a distant galaxy. And yet, Alphaville appears no different than Paris circa 1965, and the void of space that our hero crosses to get here resembles nothing more than a lonely highway at night. But do not be alarmed; these are not amateurish mistakes born of a shoestring budget. The similarities are quite intentional, not only to make the distinction between Alphaville and Earth (here grouped with planets of other galaxies and simply called "The Outlands") that much more difficult to grasp, but also to ground a scifi film in the more gritty banality of the French New Wave style.

From the get-go, the noir-ish feel of the film is palpable, as we are treated to not one but two voice-over monologues. One, that of our hero, Ivan Johnson, a reporter from New York sent to Alphaville to scoop a story on the city's mysterious leader, Professor VonBraun. The other voice, deep, stilted, gutteral, we soon learn is the artificial voice of Alphaville's central supercomputer, Alpha 60.

And like any good noir, the film remains almost impenetrably complex through most of the running time. What is somewhat apparent is that Alphaville boasts itself as a technocracy and logicocracy. The city is ruled by a logic of cause and effect delineated by the problems and solutions generated by Alpha 60. There is no past, there is no future, there is only the present, which is the logical conclusion to the problem of existence. Alpha 60 and VonBraun indoctrinate the populace through the strict control of language, which is the form of logic. Any illogical behavior is grounds for banishment or execution.

It is in this milieu that Johnson must confusedly make his way, and by being confused, he is of course illogical, which gets him in a whole lot of trouble with Alpha 60, which nevertheless is experiencing its own crisis of faith... or rather, logic.

Godard's film is rife with moralistic undercurrents, including obvious analogies of Alphaville's logicocracy to America's capitalism and Russia's communism. There are warnings about the folly of logic taken to extreme, and the dangers of wedding meaning to form, or constituent parts to a whole. Ultimately, Godard warns that the world is undoubtedly what we have made it, and yet, our ideologies will continue to replicate beyond our intent or control, simply because that is what ideologies do.

It would do well for a viewer to practice patience with this film. In the end, it is as dense as poetry, but as rewarding to those with the patience to understand.

Storyline & plot: 8/10
Cinematography & effects: 10/10
Music & mood: 9/10
Performances: 8/10

The Reverend says: 9/10