Movie Reviews: 1/31/2022 to 2/6/2022

Movies reviewed this week: Pierrot le Fou and Pig.

2/3/2022: Pierrot le Fou (1965): *****

Criterion Challenge 2022
Progress: 6/52
Prompt: Watch a film starring Anna Karina

I’ve read that it takes a few movies before Godard really clicks. Maybe it was that, or maybe it was that this is the first color movie of his I’ve seen. Either way, I felt like I was watching a genius create new cinematic vocabulary while I watched. I kept yelping in delight.

Chalk up another Algerian War connection, accidentally this time. It’s starting to sink in exactly how much that war affected France in the decade after.

2/5/2022: Pig (2021): *****

For a long time, Pig is a John Wick homage. Not a reskin: an homage. There’s a secret underground world but, despite an early head fake, Cage doesn’t conquer it with violence. He’s a chef. He uses his own particular set of skills.

And then in the end it’s something else again. Can’t short-circuit grief, I guess.