one might expect a cathartic viewing experience walking into a new jean-luc godard film . after all , he was a founding member of the highly influential french new wave . he is also an esteemed film critic , lending intelligence and historical perspective to us in much of his writing . however , his latest creation , in praise of love , is possibly the most exasperating film experience of the year . the abstract concept on which the film is based had merit , to dissect love into the following four categories : meeting , physical passion , quarrels , and reconciliation . these four universal truths would be revealed through three different couples : young , adult , and elderly . it is edgar's ( bruno putzulu ) self-appointed task to capture these moments after a recent breakup , to define a central idea : " it's only when things are over that they make sense . " whether this project will end up a play , film , or opera remains undecided . the thesis is simple enough that , if played right , it could really hold sympathetic value for anyone . instead what ensues is an hour and a half of repetitive vignettes , the next scene no more engaging than the last . only once does any character utter something worthwhile , but by the time it happens you're so thoroughly bored you can easily miss it . but don't fret , it will surface again . you could easily sleep through whole sections of the film ( as some fellow critics did ) and wake up in a scene exactly like the one you nodded off in , not having missed anything worthwhile . but you hold hope for some time . the background music keeps you in a state of urgency , and even suspense , for the first few conversations . it's only after repeated failures to pay any of this off that you lose all hope . and with speeches like , " i am thinking of something , but i can only think of that something when i am thinking of something else , " how can you expect to hold anyone's interest ? to godard's credit , he certainly knows how to frame a scene . the black and white footage used for the first half of the film is starkly beautiful . watching edgar read while walking along a train track on a mountain makes you wish you had something to ponder along with him . and if this film had anything poignant to say , you would have , which makes you all the angrier at the numerous missed opportunities . the environments , be it city or country , are impeccably captured in crisp detail , but the script never complements them . unfortunately , godard also manages to pillage his photographic eye by randomly cutting to black numerous times within any given scene . sometimes these breaks are used for chapter headings , but these are even more cryptic than the spoken words . the second half is composed of nauseating hyper-color that often blurs the image . you suddenly feel like a doomed character straight out of scanners . the only scene that makes any sense is one that complains about the united states bastardizing history in the making of movies . steven spielberg is picked on in particular . while i'll grant that this does happen , and i tend to shy away from watching such garbage , it's still a pointless focus for a film that purports to articulate the specific qualities of couplehood . it just goes to show , an intelligent person isn't necessarily an admirable storyteller . the days of breathless are no more .
