Synopsis
(1)
Someone we hear but don’t see talks of a project entitled Eloge de l’amour, which deals with the four key moments of love: the meeting, the physical passion, the quarrels and separation, the reconciliation. These moments are seen through three couples: young, adult and elderly. Is the project to be a play, a film, or even an opera? A sort of servant or assistant always accompanies the author of the project.

Adults pose a real problem. Unlike old people or young people, an adult is hard to define without telling a story. The author of the project finally meets an extraordinary young woman. In fact, they had already met three years earlier when Edgar had by chance been present during a discussion between some Americans and the young woman’s grandparents. When he comes to tell the young woman that his project is on, Edgar learns that she has died.

(2)
Two years earlier. Sent by Hollywood producers, a bureaucrat from the American Embassy in Paris meets with an old couple who had fought in the Resistance. He offers to buy the rights to their love story and their combat against the Nazi occupiers. The grandfather has asked his granddaughter, a lawyer in training, to look over the contract – she is the same young woman we met in the first part. Edgar happens to be present. He is there to interview an historian friend of the grandfather’s about de Gaulle and the Free French in London. This all takes place in one night with various heated discussions. The real question in fact is to know if an American superproduction today has the right to dramatize all the great hopes that came out of the end of World War II.

Eloge.de.l.amour.2001.FRENCH.1080p.WEB.H264-LiDHL.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 34 min
Size: 	1.72 GiB
Video
Codec: 	h264
Resolution: 	1920x1080 
Aspect ratio:  	16:9
Frame rate: 	25.000 fps
Bit rate: 	2 558 kb/s
BPP: 	0.049
Audio
#1:  	French 1.0ch AAC LC SBR PS @ 48.0 kb/s (FRA VOF : AAC)

https://nitro.download/view/422A4A95499546B/Eloge.de.l.amour.2001.FRENCH.1080p.WEB.H264-LiDHL.mkv https://nitro.download/view/34FF055525E6BF2/Eloge.de.l.amour.2001.FRENCH.1080p.WEB.H264-LiDHL.srt

Language(s):French
Subtitles:English

The post Jean-Luc Godard – Éloge de l’amour (2001) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Quote:
Having trodden the path towards ever-increasing obscurity in the 1990s, the eternal maverick of French cinema, Jean-Luc Godard made a surprising come-back with Éloge de l’amour, his first major theatrical release outside of France for well over a decade. More sophisticated and mature than Godard’s increasingly abstract and inward-looking works of the 1990s, it is a film which manages to capture the essence of Godard’s cinema (his political concerns, his love of character, his enthusiasm for cinema and literature, to say nothing of his near-pathological contempt for mainstream cinema). At the same time, it is a challenging work, packed with content whilst employing a minimalist approach reminiscent of Robert Bresson (another great director who is often referred to in the film).
The film is divided in two contrasting parts. It begins with an author’s seemingly doomed attempts to realise a ‘project’ (perhaps a film, but we cannot be certain of this). This part of the film is shot beautifully in black-and-white, almost as a sombre elegy to monochrome cinema. This includes some stunning night shots of Paris, immediately evocative of the Nouvelle Vague cinema of the 1960s in which Godard played such a major part. Two thirds of the way into the film, the mood and style change suddenly, as if we have been propelled into a dream. Thanks to the marvels of the latest digital technology, the images suddenly take on an otherworldly form, with overly saturated colour and some occasional visual distortions.

The content of the film is as striking as its extraordinary visual form. In addition to some brilliant examples of Godardesque humour (the best example being two young girls gathering a petition to get film The Matrix dubbed into Breton), social concerns and philosophical observations abound – far too much to be picked up in a single viewing of the film. Godard’s loathing for Hollywood is brilliantly represented in the scene where an elderly couple sell their life story to an American filmmaker (“let’s book Juliette Binoche”), but his wider political concerns are also very much in presence.
The relationship between real life and cinema are explored, rather ingeniously, though the thoughts and experiences of a sensitive filmmaker (very probably Godard’s alter ego). There is some resonance with the cinema of Godard’s contemporary, Alain Resnais, in the recurring allusions to the link between time and memory. Whilst condemning Hollywood filmmakers for exploiting memory just like any other commodity, to be bought and sold, Godard shows us the true value of memory, an essential part of human existence that cannot just be sold to the highest bidder.
One of Godard’s most intelligent and thought-provoking films, Éloge de l’amour manages to avoid the self-indulgent excesses of the director’s previous works, such as King Lear (1987) and Hélas pour moi (1993). Rather than provoking or mystifying its audience, this latest Godard has an almost irresistible charm, offering some poignant reflections on life, love and the dying art of cinema.

James Travers, 2002

https://nitro.download/view/CB7239BDC55AC59/Eloge.de.l.amour.Z2.cahiers.avi
https://nitro.download/view/A3EDC10EEE46384/Eloge.de.l.amour.Z2.cahiers.EN.srt

Language(s):French and some English
Subtitles:English

The post Jean-Luc Godard – Éloge de l’amour AKA In Praise of Love (2001) first appeared on Cinema of the World.