Pierott le Fou is a 1965 movie directed by Jean-Luc Godard.
Pierott le Fou tells the story of Ferdinand, a bored man eager to escape his Bourgeois life and Marianne, a gun smuggler on the run from terrorists. Together, they escape Paris and embark on a genre-bending adventure.
Pierret le Fou exists in an interesting space of the Godard universe. In some respects, it’s the natural follow-up to Band of Outsiders, yet also could be seen as the true culmination of Breathless. Godard blends gangster films, island adventures and spy thrillers into a subversive text that ultimately reveals itself as an ironic political statement.
Godard’s movies feature a quirky, contextual innocence – his characters seem to be trying on roles in an experimental landscape. Here, we see a familiar blueprint: a couple is on the run – they’re playing existentialist gangsters – staging car wrecks and breaking the fourth wall. Ferdinand is writing a book, Marianne throws it away.
However, a shift is occurring in the Godard universe. The subversive reassembly of culture that marked his earlier movies is still vivid, but a heaviness is looming. The second half of Pierrot le Fou issues a statement regarding an increasingly militant world. Even Godard is not immune to such sweeping societal change.
Yet, Pierrot le Fou is still a masterful dissection of culture and a really fun movie.
And it looks great.
Stylistically, this may be Godard’s most appealing movie – or at least, it’s intriguing to see him experiment with color.
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