Band Of Outsiders

Year: 1964

Grade: B

Country: France

Director: Godard

Review

it’s an interesting film – it does a lot of things, particularly with sound, that make it worth watching for film fans. it’s narrated by a neutral party voice-over and rather than using it sparingly, godard chooses to have the narrator tell the audience how characters are feeling, the history of their relationships, etc. usually voice-overs are done by characters within the film and give the audience a frame in which to view the film or provide important information to get the audience up to speed, so in this sense godard is doing something different here. the cinematography is rather striking, though i hesitate to say that since it’s so cliché. it’s not beautiful in the same way as a cinemascope feature is, or in the same way that citizen kane is, but the picture is, for lack of a better word, artistic. band of outsiders also has a compelling, though fairly basic and tried, story which is a relief since it’s mostly an art film. often artsy films will abandon plot in favor of character development, and though this can be successful to an extent (down by law), it’s usually a recipe for an unbalanced disaster. that’s not to say that this film’s plot was great (like i said, it’s pretty basic) or that its characters were undeveloped (on the contrary, they were well-drawn), all i’m really trying to say is that it’s more balanced than many films of its kind. i think this may be the case because it takes the new wave, artsy style and combines it with the caper b-films of american cinema, creating a hybrid style of film that is both artsy and character driven while having a plot that keeps the audience involved. this is the first godard film i’ve seen in its entirety because “in praise of love” was so bad i couldn’t bear to finish it. this film gave me a little more confidence in his work. fyi: “bande a part” is the french title which may be for interest to tarantino fans.