Were the world a simpler and gentler place, Pierrot le fou would consist of 110 minutes of Ferdinand (Jean-Paul Belmondo) and Marianne (Anna Karina) relaxing on the seaside. Instead, it's the most exhilarating elegy for a failed marriage and betrayal you're ever likely to see. Jean-Luc Godard's tenth film marked a turning point for the director, who divorced Karina around the time he made it. Afterwards, he abandoned its romanticism and upped the political references and Brechtian tactics that lie on the sideline here. It might be a good entry point for Godard neophytes, made at a moment where he could still celebrate American directors like Frank Tashlin, Nicholas Ray and Samuel Fuller (who makes a cameo) and rage against American foreign policy, maintaining an uneasy balance of experimentation and accessibility.
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