IMDb plot summary: A surreal tale of a married couple going on a road trip to visit the wife's parents with the intention of killing them for the inheritance.
Directed by Jean-Luc Godard. Starring Mireille Darc, Jean Yanne, and Jean-Pierre Kalfon.
Weekend is a Jean-Luc Godard film about a couple who goes on a weekend vacation that gets... violent and surreal and French new wave. I should probably put in the preface that Godard is one of those filmmakers that I find actively irritating, so I did not have high hopes for this. I have had long conversations about him with friends who adore his work and I just never come any closer to liking it. This mostly stays in that vein -- long sprawling shots that seem to be doing nothing, rambling philosophical conversations that seem to have nothing to do with the plot, camerawork that feels so pretentious in a way I find myself constantly resisting. There is, however, one sequence that I found remarkably effective. Early on, there is almost an eight-minute scene that is one long tracking shot following a traffic jam over probably three-quarters of a mile, and as we follow one car trying to get past the blockage and see the reactions of all the other drivers stuck in place, it remains surprisingly compelling throughout, only to end in a scene of violence that I found even more startling given the sense of slow mundanity the film had lulled me into. I thought that was fascinating, and I thought to myself, "Maybe this will be the Godard film that changes my mind." But sadly, that was the only piece of the film I liked.
How it entered my Flickchart:
Weekend < Gas Food Lodging
Weekend < Rikki-Tikki-Tavi
Weekend > The House With Closed Shutters
Weekend < There's No Business Like Show Business
Weekend > Courage Under Fire
Weekend > Pretty Poison
Weekend < Palo Alto
Weekend > Captive State
Weekend > Premonition
Weekend < Eddie the Eagle
Weekend > The Formula
Final spot: #2928 out of 3564, or 18%.
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