1962, Jean-Luc Godard) As that vital 2000 francs proves elusive, and an ill-placed foot gets her in trouble with les flics, record store clerk and would-be actress Anna Karina slides almost inevitably onto the game. An old and simple story, too often descending into the maudlin – but not here, as Godard’s detached, objective treatment, while also a “passionate celluloid love-letter” to his then-wife/muse, brings a Brechtian quality to an almost case study of prostitution, while attaining its own kind of pathos. From the initial breakup, shot solely from behind the participants in a bar; to the tear-stained viewing of Dreyer’s Passion of Joan of Arc; to the equally tear-stained interview with a cop; to the awkward, painful encounter with that first customer; to the voiceover of FAQs while a montage of day-to-day routine unreels; Godard’s elliptical style finds beauty in the banal via the pearly grays of the great Raoul Coutard’s camerawork. With some typically eccentric asides: the by-hand height measurement (metrically converted, Karina is 5’6½“); a test on how to tell a lady from a tramp; a drive past an endless queue to see Jules and Jim; Karina’s café discussion with an elderly man (distinguished real-life philosopher Brice Parain) that ranges from Dumas to Plato to le mot juste to German philosophy; and the legendary exuberant dance around the trying-to-concentrate billiards player.
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