Slow Motion

Star Review

Godard’s ‘second first film’ was acclaimed as his return to commercial film-making after a number of overtly polemical works. Picking up themes of prostitution and hidden commerce from 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her, he presents us with snatches from the lives of three characters. Dutronc plays an embittered, unpleasant TV producer (‘Godard’), Baye his ex who has decamped to the country to work on her novel about ‘how things really are’ and Huppert a matter-of-fact prostitute who pimps her sister. The film freely mixes high art and obscenity, pretension and mockery, brutality and tenderness, the mixture coalescing in the central sex scene between a businessman (who never rises from his desk), his assistant and two prostitutes, which is perverse, ridiculous and melancholy.

In the film the character ‘Godard’ says that he makes movies only to keep busy, which is akin to hearing Dylan sing ‘I used to care, but things have changed’. We also know it’s not true – Godard the director is the prime connections man, linking sounds and ideas into fractured elegies for modern existence, and despite himself finding traces of redemptive beauty among exploitation and abuse.

Graeme Hobbs on 13th December 2005
View all 235 of Graeme Hobbs's reviews

Film Description

An inventive parody of modern life that revolves around three characters who are all at turning points in their lives. It also has one of the most uncomfortably funny 'sex' scenes ever filmed, mercilessly skewering the relationship between sex and money. The film that marked Godard's return to commercial cinema.

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DVD Extras

• 'Scenario video Sauve qui Peut (La Vie): Some notes on the direction and production of the film by Jean-Luc Godard
• Filmographies and biographies.

Film Details

Cast

Isabelle Huppert, Nathalie Baye, Jaques Dutronc

Technical Details

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