Masculin féminin: 15 Faits Précis
(Masculine-Feminine)
1966

Watching Masculine-Feminine, I was once again reminded of Truffaut. May be because of the very presence of Jean-Pierre Léaud , or may be because of the tongue-tied and ambivalent Paul he plays. The scene at the mall where Paul records everything that he honestly thinks about Madeline on a disc and perhaps intends to present to her was an instant portal for me to the scene in Truffaut’s Stolen Kisses (1968) where Antoine, incidentally the same Jean-Pierre Léaud, repeats his name and those of Fabienne and Christine in front of a mirror to come to sanity. And may be it is because of all these warm moments, the film works well also as an ode to the joy of youth.

Masculine-Feminine (1966)

Masculine-Feminine (1966)

If Godard captured what men and women expect from each other in Contempt (1963), he extracts how exactly their younger counterparts view each other and how their actions are subconsciously manipulated to concur with that perception. Another similarity between the films would be the misattributed Bazin quote (“The cinema,’ substitutes for our gaze a world that corresponds to our desires“) that Godard rephrases in the scene at the theater. Being as naughty as ever, Godard dubs the film as “Children of Marx and Coca Cola“. And it probably sums up the entire film. It is so amusing to see Léaud trying desperately to become a revolutionary leftist and helplessly embracing the western way of life. And silently from this honesty arises Godard’s viewpoints on involvement of the student and the youth community in revolution.

Though not as experimental as Godard’s other films of the period, he does develop some style points that he would extrapolate in his later films –  the regular interruption of key conversations with unexpected noise, the flashy titles with word plays et al. Godard utilizes a lot of off-screen sounds and events equiping the audience enough for them to figure out what is happening on and off the screen. And perhaps because of its non-alienating and mostly non-experimenting nature, Masculine-Feminine may be one of the few Godard films that many will love without hostility.