Customer Reviews

Oh Woe Is Me (Helas Pour Moi) [VHS]

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It seems as if it came out of the late 50's early 60's French existentialist movement; discordant (annoying) musical sounds, repeated to emphasize one-knows-not: short movements within scenes repeated quickly to no positive addition to the viewer: It is hard to explain how bad it is other than to say it is hard to watch and not at all entertaining (unless perhaps you are a very depressed person).

God wants to make love to a woman, based on an ancient myth regarding Zeus. That plot and some full frontal nudity sounds like the movie couldn't be that bad. It is. The background scenery is nice. The rest is fractured editing of fractured shots of actors struggling with bad dialogue. It is all so very dated and not worth watching; not all things retro are good.

Answer: Nobody can tell and nobody gives a damn. Images and sounds of "Helas pour moi" didn't receive a warm audience in mexican cinemas but rather giggles and misunderstanding. But, is there something really to understand about Godard's film? The plot is an excuse to explore the director's familiar manias about the nature of movies. Always, as in "Pierrot le fou", we are not in front of the conventional film, but in front of some kind of puzzle that the viewer must solve in his own. Cinema isn't the social event that it appears to be when confronted with a personal silence, with an interrogation. What did it mean? Warm and graceful. Godard's film is an entertaining intellectual offering that doesn't insist on being understood (as with ready to take classics like "Barton Fink", "Reservoir Dogs" and recent David Lynch failures) but on, simply, being watched. Cinema is a dead word. That is why Godard said to think in terms of sounds and images. The result: an interrogation, but in a quiet, inspired manner. It's a pleasure to watch a film that isn't uncomfortable on being simply... a film.

"Hélas pour moi" est un mauvais film, Godard lui-même le reconnaît. Mais enfin, comment le critiquer, avoir les mots face à lui et face aux autres, qui éjaculent à son simple nom. Peut-être juste une image, une voix et une posture. Celle du Dieu godardien, qui rappelle les faux dieux du film et de la série "Stargate": cette même façon de parler, d'avoir un cancer de la gorge. Alors que dire, comment être constructif: comparer, encore et toujours, se dire surtout que Godard n'a pas fait que des bons films, qu'il a même fait quelques navets -sans doute une foi déclinante dans le cinéma, quand le sujet est moins bon. Conclusion: un des meilleurs critiques français, Louis Skorecki, a écrit à propos de "Je vous salue Marie", que la vierge de Godard n'était pas assez vierge, pas assez juive. C'est exactement la situation du Dieu de "Hélas pour moi": pas assez juif et trop allemand.