Not even bad in a good way

In other words,this film is a surreal ride.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

Seen at the Viennale 2017: Reason for screening was a sad tragedy. Hans Hurch, director of the Viennale (Vienna International Film Festival) since 10 years, died this summer. Now for the Viennale 2017 several filmmaker selected movies in praise of Mr. Hurch. Agnes Varda selected Bande a Part for screening. I think, everybody who goes to the movies must see all Godard movies at least once. And for sure the wonderful Anna Karina in Bande a Part.

Bande à parte is an exhibition of its own style from the title sequence. And a declaration of intent; the Cinema as a game. Irrespective of being part of the Nouvelle Vague its genre is unclassifiable. The whole movie is a great artistic trick in which the experience get things that only cinema can achieve. The entire film fights hard against the boredom of the viewer in the same way that the protagonists fight their own boredom. A playful movie in which through an overactive narration shows us a gallery of actions that could happen in a action- movie and happen. I'm going to try to condense it into a hyper- spoiler: the traffic in Paris, the parody of a duel, a teacher dictates Romeo and Juliet, we hear heartbeats, somebody makes up, Arthur comes through the top of a car running, Odile runs and runs while the boys read the press to us, a lion, and a tiger, Odile sings around, Frantz does acrobatics on a wheel, a fair-shotgun, they cross a river, and play changing chairs and drinks, they smoke, tell jokes and fight, and run through the Louvre and a moment of silence. And of course the eternal and great dance. As the narrator would say: "Let the images speak." The kids move around like children in an amusement park and we want to stay in this movie. The Pulp plot is almost anecdote because in this masterpiece, Godard, as the narrator says about the heroes of this great adventure "saw that there were no limits or constructions" and invented a movie 100% unprecedented. Finally " the movie ends when nothing yet degrades or decreases. " Chapeau.

Godard's wonderful, watch-able little movie is a real breath of fresh air. The simplicity of it's cinematic style and the youthful spirit, and foolishness, of it's protagonists give it a reality that rings true on many levels. The plot is absorbing , the locations are superb, the casting inspired and the jazzy score hits exactly the right note for the time and place.Anna Karina is stunningly attractive as Odile. The camera just loves her, even when dressed down, her face flawlessly lights up the screen. Her eyes are bright and inviting and her character is a delightful mix of childlike uncertainty and kittenish would-be-sophistication. Her two co-stars are a pair of comic 'likely lads' with-a-plan, and how that plan unfolds and their relationships with her, and with each other, develop in the process form the nub of the story. There's a good deal of adolescent knockabout fun; the two men delight in play-acting as gangsters and reliving scenes from their favourite American movies, all three characters get up and spontaneously dance 'The Madison' in a cafe and the poor Simca sports car in which they drive around is repeatedly and mercilessly thumped over kerbs and pieces of scrap-yard junk. Typical kids....The Paris of BANDE A PART seems mostly far removed from the familiar clichéd, sophisticated landmarks (except for that one famous short scene in the Louvre) and although it's 1964, the whole area looks pre-war in style with painted advertising on walls and streets bare of traffic and pedestrians in a way unimaginable today. The cafe-culture is more centred around Traditional Jazz than Rock-and-Roll and even the way the characters dress appears to be from a time as yet untouched by the very youth-quake that Godard and his fellow New-Wave film makers helped to promote. The Beatles may have been taking the world by storm but they hadn't quite reached this Parisian quarter.The cinematography is good, given the constraints, while the editing and general production values are equally impressive - something not entirely expected given the New-Wave's preference for a raw, pared-back style.All in all this film really works and having just bought the DVD (for lack of any recent TV airings) I can see myself watching it over and over in future. Recommended.

Apart from perhaps being a satire of gangster movies, the point of this film eludes me. Two guys and a young woman plan a robbery at the Paris house where the young woman lives with her aunt. The young woman is naive and constantly scared. The two young men are seemingly rather ordinary. I didn't find any of these people interesting. We never learn much about them or what motivates them. Yet, given that this is a "New Wave" film I doubt that characterization was all that important to the film's director.The plot starts out okay, but then meanders, and then becomes increasingly silly and unbelievable. Maybe that was intentional. Midway through, the three main characters suddenly, and for no reason, burst into a dance called the "Madison", the steps to which are nothing if not annoyingly repetitive. This bouncy little interlude goes on for some time, yet it has absolutely nothing to do with the story. Again, maybe that's the point.Other gimmicks are inserted gratuitously, evidently to shock 1964 viewers into the realization, consistent with New Wave doctrine, that the film is not a product of the dreaded classical Hollywood narrative style of film-making.But the worst element of this film is the sound. Background, ambient noise is amplified; why, I don't know, except, again, as some counterpoint to standard Hollywood films. Yet, the noise in "Band Of Outsiders" is so distracting, even grating, it takes away from what little value the visuals and narrative may have.B&W cinematography is unremarkable. Lighting is low-contrast. Visuals trend toward grayish, pallid tones. Production design, in keeping with low-budget film-making, is plain, even cheap looking.As a daring and iconoclastic attempt in 1964 to provide an alternative to stodgy, old-style Hollywood film-making, Godard's "Band Of Outsiders" probably does have some historical value. But what was visionary then seems campy and trite now.