Product Details

• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Full Screen, NTSC
• Running time: 80 minutes

Customer Reviews

Exasperatingly enchanting
I saw this film some 8 years ago in a revival theatre along with most of Godard's early classics. As a part of his body of work, Les Carabiniers fits in snugly, but I would most emphatically recommend NOT to start your Godard spree with it. The film appears messy, with inconsistent pacing, strange comic interludes, baffling dialogue and pointed (but rarely obvious) commentary about the nature of war. Godard utilizes some action scenes (taking cues from Sam Fuller) and plays with the conventions of Hollywood cinema with obvious delight. Much of this is true of all his films up to WEEKEND. But at the heart of this small film there is an anger that would only resurface years later - probably due to the fact that this film was pulled from the market soon after its release (thanks to public indifference and critical vehemence, both of which are understandable reactions if you expect your standard fare from a film such as this). It is invigoratingly different, energetic to a fault, and of course pure Godard. It doesn't have (m)any familiar faces in it, and the sloppy approach with eccentric acting only enhances the narrow line between innocence and cruelty that the film repeatedly touches on. Very much worth a look, but be cautious in your expectations.

Godard's Treatise on War is difficult, but enlightening
Godard made his 5th feature with the goal of infuriating the viewers, he succeeds on one level. But on another level, he made a masterstroke film that condemns war and inanities of blind patriotism. But employing a fictional setting and war, Godard is able to get at the heart of the matter more quickly than most anti-war films, because he doens't have to "waste time" setting the scene of the battle - whether it's D-Day, the Battle of the Bulge or Back to Baatan - those operations have to be faithfully re-created and, I guess, in Godard's mind cloud the real issues that are mined in an anti-war film.

Shot in 16mm to accecentuate the war correspondant feel of the picture, Godard employs he unique, trade-mark sound editing to most effective results and creates a world that takes to task the materialist cultures of the west that fight wars in order to ensure continued monied-existences for the citizenry.

The DVD transfer is remarkably clean, considering the elements and the style that Godard wanted. It probably looks better that even Godard intended. A worthy purchase those looking for a strident, fresh examination of that unqiuely human enterprise - war.

An irritating anti-war fable...
Similar to Ingmar Bergman's 'Shame' is Godard's powerful parable of war, 'The Riflemen.'

Godard has stated that 'In dealing with war, I followed a very simple rule. I assumed I had to explain to children not only what war is, but what all wars have been from the barbarian invasions to Korean and Algeria, by way of Fontenoy, Trafalgar, and Gettysburg.'

Michelange and Ulysse leave the women when the king's officers come enlist them... They are offered everything... 'Can we loot, burn, rape etc. etc... 'Yes. You can do anything you want,' they are assured... So with rifles on their backs they are off to war...

Like Bergman's film there is no enemy... Both sides wear the same uniform, talk the same language and have the same objectives... Nothing is left out of the film, the hate, the humiliation, the rape, but above all we are impressed by the unending and unrelieved scenery of destruction... There is nothing that is natural or alive in the world of rubble...