I liked the film particularly because it is well acted. Jean Pierre-Leaud, the guy in 400 Blows and in Day for Night….how can a French director go wrong with the French New Wave icon? Some actors who seemingly suit the New Wave vibe like Karina, Belmondo, Seberg, Leaud…they have this innocence which masks a rebellious, and somewhat revolutionary inner character.
There is even a line where Paul tells Madeleine that he had called a "General Doinel", possibly a film allusion to Truffaut's 400 blows which launched Leaud's career…which Godard used just to make a connection. Again, I ask the question, how does he do it? How does he turn a 10 minute interview an interesting one (without any cuts). How does he turn a boy-girl conversation about anything in particular seem just the right thing to talk about? Maybe it lies in the social milieu of the period, where capitalism and socialism are in a political power-struggle… where modern French philosophy is beginning to generate post-modern thought…where religion is becoming less and less of an issue.
There is something about the characters when they talk: they seem so realistic, we forget that they are just characters in character. Although I remind myself that Godard is both director and writer, and that this was the period for auteurism, maybe this is Godard himself, talking through the youth's confusion.
Confusion: there is sexual tension throughout the film. I never got to confirm if Elizabeth (the freckled blonde) has an attraction for Madeleine (played by real-life French ye-ye singer, Chantal Goya), or if she is doing it in retaliation to Paul's advances. We never even get to confirm if Madeleine was pregnant at all..maybe these are all just excuses or half-truths which underline the physical, emotional and social difference between men and women, at that time where equality through liberal ideas and socialism was being harbored.
Just like in Breathless, where Godard focuses on what seems to be a human bonding session (Belmondo and Seberg's LONG hotel bedroom scene) which seems so substantial, he does it again in Masculin Feminin where I thought that Paul would eventually unravel the true Madeleine, nothing is really dramatically revealed. Godard is playing on the notion of human depth in conversational intercourse: is there really a point where we know the other person, especially of the opposite sex/gender… we might never know, and maybe it might "not be our business".
