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Review: La Chinoise (Jean-Luc Godard, 1967)

Left vs Right, Personal vs Political, Fact vs Fiction Stephen Morgan

Apr 24, 2009

Jean-Luc Godard's 1967 film La Chinoise provides an oblique critique of leftist politics in France in

the lead up to the events of May 1968.

A resolutely arthouse film loosely based on Fyodor Dostoyevsky's 1872 novel The Possessedand

widely regarded as heralding a second (overtly political) wave of filmmaking by French iconoclast

Jean-Luc Godard, 1967'sLa Chinoise is a heavily politicised and ultra-stylised study of leftist

politics. Primarily concerned with a leftist political culture split between the revisionism of the

Soviet Union (and the associated subsidiary communist parties) and the Marxist classicism of

Maoist students, the film manages to break through the rhetoric to remain an interesting film both

thematically and stylistically that foreshadowed the intricacies of Paris' infamous uprising in May of

1968.

'A Manifesto of Manifestos'

For Godard,La Chinoise is kind of a manifesto of manifestos where the political is personal and

the personal is political, fact is fiction and fiction is fact. Shot in a semi-documentary style and

melds a series of 'interviews' of each of the main characters, with text read directly from numerous

leftist tomes, including Chairman MaosLittle Red Book, revered in the film as a kind of communist

new testament.

The loose narrative ofLa Chinoise unfurls within a Paris apartment commune, where its student

occupants sleep, eat, read, discuss and debate the politics of life and their lives in politics. Told

through a series of truncated vignettes, rather than as an overarching cohesive narrative whole, it is

within the relationships between these central characters that Godard manages to salvage what

could have become an extremely laborious viewing experience (and one which does lapse

occasionally.)

The Idealism of Youth

The students inLa Chinoise gained renewed optimism for an otherwise failed socialist experiment

after the the overindulgence (and outright corruption) or Stalin-led Russia. In their eyes, Chairman

Mao and the Chinese Cultural Revolution had delivered communism back to its Marxist/Leninist

roots. The Chinese example had given new life into an almost lifeless corpse, providing a rallying

point around which to attack the students' opponents on the right as well as their detractors on the

left.

It is interesting also, to examine how Godard portrays these students. Are they, in his eyes, true

revolutionaries? Or are they simply immature children, playing at politics? This is never reallymade clear for the viewer and perhaps hints at the fact that many people heavily involved in politics

at both extremes of the sphere tend to embody elements of both. Godards own stance on the

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material at hand is similarly ambiguous, and the viewer is left to wonder how much of what is said

on screen is a reflection of Godards own beliefs and just how much of it is Godard 'playing'

himself.

A Tentative Premonition of May '68

La Chinoise is, of course, particularly interesting from a historical perspective in its focus on leftist

students living in Paris in 1967. More or less a product of its environment, the film is a tentative

premonition of the events of May 68, when a series of student strikes in Paris led to widespread

civil unrest and a declaration of a general strike which would shake up the old society of France.

This shake up was reflected in Godards desire to remove the bourgeois pleasures that had

previously populated his films, leading him to make a series of quite abrasive, heavy handed filmsin the 1960s. This includesLa Chinoise, as well as Weekend- perhaps one of Godards finest films -

which rode a wave of social and political unrest throughout Europe and merged Godards acerbic

wit, social commentary and pop-art imagery with stark cinematic experimentation.

Godard strives, also, to show the day to day inconsistencies and hypocrisies of these young and

petulant students. Of particular interest is the treatment doled out to the character of Yvonne, who is

clearly from a working class background (as opposed to the middle-class bourgeois backgrounds of

the others) and is treated as some kind of dumb house maid, constantly ridiculed and scorned.

A Brechtian Influence

Through the exploits of the students, Godard creates a farcical world of Brechtian proportions,

culminating in an unsuccessful assassination attempt on Mikhail Sholokhov. In fact, Bertold

Brechts influence is writ large across the whole film (as it is, in many respects, across Jean-Luc

Godards whole career). In one memorable scene inLa Chinoise, Godard pays homage to Brecht's

influence when a blackboard full of famous names is erased one by one, until finally only the name

of Brecht remains.

La Chinoise also features possibly one of the best songs about any socialist leader, anywhere in the

world, Claude Channes' fuzzed up 60s guitar tribute to Mao Zedong.

It may not be one of Jean-Luc Godards better known works (only receiving a proper US DVD

release in late 2008), yetLa Chinoise

does provide an interesting insight into 1960s politics, a timeof radical political upheaval in France and of free-wheeling experimentation for one of its greatest

filmmakers.