A Woman Is a Woman

Angéla, who works in a strip club, wants a child. Émile does not. To prove she means it, she sleeps with his best friend Alfred. At one point the couple conduct an argument not by speaking but by pulling books off the shelves and pointing at the titles. It is Godard's third feature and the first in both colour and anamorphic widescreen. Raoul Coutard shot it and Michel Legrand wrote the music. The film declares itself a musical and then refuses to be one. Songs start and get cut off, the orchestra drops out mid-sentence. That is not a flaw, it is the joke. Anna Karina stars with Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean-Claude Brialy. The budget was around 160,000 dollars. At the 11th Berlin International Film Festival Karina won the Silver Bear for Best Actress, the film took a Special Jury Prize, and it was nominated for the Golden Bear. Who it is for: viewers who love Godard at his most playful and his use of colour. Who it is not for: anyone arriving with genre expectations. A film that announces itself as a musical and then is not one irritates some people, and they have a point.