Masculin Feminin

This film is again by Jean-Luc Goddard. It was made in black and white and with a very low budget. It came out in 1966. This film is able to penetrate reality and describes social reality. It also shows how a film can be used as a medium. This is not a linear film.

The french communist party was a major party at this time, it never won the election but always got at least 25-30% of the vote. You can see in this film that Goddard was getting more into politics. There are several references to the Vietnam war. This film was very choppy and does not flow well.

Again we see stereotypes that Goddard always faces. The plot is de-emphasized. He again experiments with sound ( it is there, stops, picks up again). The story is divided into chapters that are numbered, but does not flow numerically like chapters in a book would. The subtitles or messages of the chapters come with a loud, menacing, almost scary sound behind them. It definitely grabs your attention. We also see Goddard dealing with class and political issues.

The two main characters are Paul and Madeline. Paul is very anguished, troubled about politics and when asked what his main focus in life is said, Love. Madeline is very self centered and absorbed, her main focus in life would be herself.


The interviewing scenes are very weird. The scene want us to be unsure if we are seeing the actors or the characters give the answers. The scene of 2 people questioning each other are more like an interrogation scene than two people getting to know each other.

This film used montages, when Goddard wanted the idea of shocking and several different and random ideas/objects/things put together and having it work.

This film surprised me with the mention on birth control and abortion. I was also very surprised when Paul died. It follows the line of french new wave by showing us that film can contain/do/be anything.