Goodbye to Language (2014) 4.5/5 Stars

Starring Héloïse Godet, Kamel Abdeli, Richard Chevallier, Zoé Bruneau, Christian Grégori, and  Roxy Miéville (Jean-Luc Godard’s dog)

Directed by Jean-Luc Godard 

Screenplay by Jean-Luc Godard

Produced by Alain Sarde, Brahim Chioua, and Vicente Maraval

Courtesy of Kino Lorber

Simplicity may not be straightforward at all. A simple thing can be very complicated from a different angle. Godard said that the idea is simple but has the most complex sequences of shots to follow. This movie is only about 70 minutes long, and Goodbye to Language isn't an easy viewing watch. It's a concise feature-length film that addresses our social customs and shows the point of view of the main subject, a bystander off camera and a dog. 

The film has two stories that go back and forth called Nature and Metaphor. Goodbye to Language depicts a couple having an affair. The woman's husband discovers the romance, and the lover is killed. The couples Josette (Godet) and Gédéon (Abdeli), and Ivitch (Bruneau) and Marcus (Chevallier) and their actions repeat and mirror one another. Godard intentionally cast the male and female leads to resemble each other physically. There is also a cute dog named Roxy that intervenes in the couples' actions. Godard presents him as an intellectual and wonders what water says to him. 

Like in his previous films, Godard expresses his love of philosophy, literature, and film by putting art clips in this narrative essay, including Metropolis, The Snows of Kilimanjaro, Only Angels Have Wings, and clips of Nazi Germany and the USSR. In addition, the film quotes several writers. These include direct quotes paraphrased by characters or unseen narrators and copies of books seen in shots.

Goodbye to Language is a triumph for the 3D film genre. Goodbye to Language is perhaps the only film meant to be seen in 3D. I saw the 2D version and hate that some shots were separated, and they don't go together in the 2D version. Goodbye to Language introduces a "separation" shot. A single, unbroken shot splits into two separate images that can be viewed simultaneously through the left or the right eye and then return to one single 3D shot. I might like it even more if I only saw Goodbye to Language in 3D. Cinematographers Fabrice Aragno and Godard also experimented with double exposure 3D images and shots with parallax that is difficult for the human eye to see. The parallax shot is like the image of the sun in Rashomon, where the difficult pictures can be viewable.

The 3D format gives a touch to the audience and the characters in Goodbye to Language. 3D is used as a tool for quality instead of using it on purpose, as in summer blockbuster flicks. 3D provides new layers of cinematography and focuses well on the focus's depth. In addition, 3D gives a new kind of vocabulary to film. The terminology introduced in Goodbye to Language makes the film a tool to study and creates some new forms of narratology.

There is a curious moment in the film when Davidson (Gregori) mentions to his wife Isabelle using the human thumb. Besides holding items, we only really use our thumbs when using our smartphones. Before smartphones, our thumbs could've been "little thumb," referring Hop-o’-My-Thumb. Goodbye to Language makes excellent use of dutch angles as the ground, settings, and characters go down diagonal. It's like a landslide, and the angles signify that life has no balance 24/7. 

Weirdly, you see naked bodies and pubes for a portion of the film, but they have the Godard hallmarks of political theory and meaning of life in their discussions. Godard makes us ask questions about what we see in his films. Like in Breathless, we wondered what on earth just happened, and the same thing again in Goodbye to Language. Marcus and Ivitch talk about how Russians aren't Europeans. Technically, Russians are both and can be either European or Asian. It all depends on which part of Russia you live in, and you can technically be both Asian and European. 

The sound design is remarkable and contains nature and interaction. They transition well with classical music from Beethoven and Sibelius. It is hard to follow more than two images in a single shot, and there have been instances that the human eye can't see. Perhaps it is just a coincidence, or that life should be confusing. That Goodbye to Language is a welcome not just to a metaphor for filmmaking, but a welcome to the real life that happens to everyone multiple times at the same time.

Besides being a drama and an experimental essay, Goodbye to Language has no specific genre. Is it melodrama, fantasy, or fiction? The point is that Goodbye to Language can be anything you want it to be. The film has no plot and possibly no meaning, like in David Lynch's Mulholland Dr, but Goodbye to Language displays numerous techniques that make us analyze this short feature-length film. It is a film that provides you a new perspective on the story and changes your previous thoughts on it for better or worse. It also shows that Jean-Luc Godard went to the fountain of youth to make a film that doesn't age against time and feels new every time it is delivered.