La Chinoise
La Chinoise
NR | 04 March 1968 (USA)
La Chinoise Trailers

A small group of French students are studying Mao, trying to find out their position in the world and how to change the world to a Maoistic community using terrorism.

Reviews
Solemplex

To me, this movie is perfection.

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Sexyloutak

Absolutely the worst movie.

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Jakoba

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

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Bob

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

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tcorgat

Godard's La Chinoise is truly a remarkable and utterly unique film. This one and Week end are both the highlights of his progression from his earlier new wave, Hollywood inspired films, to more experimental and avant-garde ones. For those interested in good stories and plot this one will be a bore. For those that are also interested in good directing, camera shots, angles, long takes, brilliant cinematography (man the red colours), minimalism, cool editing of both sound and picture, La Chinoise is exactly what they want.It's very important to be familiar with the time period (late sixties), in both culture and politics. And of course, with communism, especially Maoism. Now some people may think of this film as an "ode to communism", while others may say that it's more like tongue-in-cheek. Whatever it may be, the film is simply brilliant.What we have is bunch of young people in an apartment, reading books, quoting Mao, having discussions, presentations and witty dialogue, about loads of subjects such as: Love, Vietnam war, Communism, capitalism, language, terrorism, knowledge, etc. That is the whole plot of the film, but the film language here is much more deep and rich, as mentioned before.My rating is pure 10/10.

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Robert Bloom

Godard's misunderstood film about a cell of Maoist students in 1967 France is not so much an endorsement of revolutionary politics as it is an exploration of it. Although the film clearly contributed to the revolt at Columbia uprising, and later the student May uprising of 1968, this is in fact a highly nuanced account of the variegated tendencies of radicalization among the French youth. We encounter an outdated renunciation of Marxism-Leninism, which sadly converted large swaths of radicalizing youths to Mao in the 1960's, and still has some resonance on the left today. This is a delightful mixture of politics and pop culture as only Godard can provide, that is, with passion and form.

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patriciabarone

In Japan, La Choise was put on the market as DVD in last year. Although I obtained to view it after some hesitation, the work by Godard in 1967 was brought to very beautiful digitized pictures. About four decades ago, I remembered having seen the poster that was stuck on the wall filled in the graffiti of a political slogan in the movie research club room of an university, although I did not view this work itself. In the poster, Anne Wiazemsky of makeup of Red Guard, wearing the Mao cap and the Mao jacket, hanged up Little Red Book highly with the right hand. The background of the poster was cranberry red. In this movie, the color of white and red is used for symmetry as metaphor. Former suggests bourgeois communism in Western countries, and latter suggests Maoism.A movie starts in the white mansion house in the Paris suburbs. To study Maoism, the five women and men congregate to live a communal life in residence with a white interior and exterior wall that elaborated the intention on the furniture of a bourgeois hobby. We scoped out the setting for Beijing Weekly Report, Mao cap, and much Little Red Book. Those movie property emboss petite bourgeois radicalism. Although Godard was disgusted with the bourgeois Western communism, zeitgeist at the time shared a similar perspective between the young intelligentsia and students having the leftist ideology of Western Europe. The energy in such a spirit of the age was committed to the Maoism, and praised the Cultural Revolution. In Western countries, it was only catastrophe and It is few persons' sacrifice and ended. When on the train Anne Wiazemsky and Professor Francis Jeanson debate the revolution, she sits down toward a direction of movement against the background of the train window, but he sits down conversely. We know the history that the train goes to the destination of violence, destruction, and genocide. Although Godard in those days must have sat down on the same seat of Anne, of course, probably, he must have got off without going to the terminal station. The scene of the conversation in that train suggests ambivalence of Godard himself. In 1968 of the next year when this film-making was done, we encountered The Paris May Revolution. It passed away after febrile delirium. Almost all young intelligentsia and students of those days in the Western countries as well as Godard must have got off. I did so.When about four decades have passed away, we now know The Cultural Revolution in China as a struggle for power at Beijing Zhongnanhai, Vietnam War as a southing to occupy by North Vietnam, a genocide in The Cultural Revolution in China, a genocide by the Pol Pot Administration of Maoism, and also collapse of communism itself. I can now view this movie calmly.

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jameswtravers

La Chinoise, possibly Godard's most political work, is very much a film of its time. The mid-1960s was a period of great social change and political tension. America was at war with Vietnam, relations between Russia and the West were growing ever cooler, and the Far East was awakening to the hymn of the Chinese cultural revolution. Nearer to home, there was increasing tension between the French government, public-sector workers and the student population, which would come to a head in the following year with the student riots. It would have been more surprising if a French film director had not created a film like La Chinoise.Here, Godard's method of film-making is at its most primitive and extreme. In a sense, it is hardly a film at all, but a series of sketches nailed crudely together, interspersed with some pretty wild pop-art like imagery. The end result is raggedy, colourful, a bit rough round the edges, but also quite witty.It is not clear from this film where Godard's political allegiances lie. We can see that he is against the hypocrisy of the Amercain interventionalist policy, which he suggests are derived from imperialistic motives. However, it is less certain where he stands with regard to the Maoist communist ideal. The discussion between the students appears incredibly naïve, didactic, to the point of self-mockery. And the fact that the students are evidently from a middle class background seems to further underline the contradiction between their personal circumstances and their apparently deeply held beliefs.It is probably safest to regard La Chinoise as Godard's view of how students consider the politics of the time rather than as a portrayal of his own political views. With that in mind, the film reads as a very perceptive study of the naivety of young adults. For these people, freed from the need to work for a living as they pursue their studies in comfortable surroundings, it is easy to contrive a woolly-minded simplistic picture of the world, and to believe that a few bombs in a few school classrooms will solve everything. As the film reveals in its final segment, the dream ends as soon as the degree course has ended. Godard seems consciously to be admitting that his film will change nothing but that it is nonetheless valuable to at least make his statement.

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