This kind of struck me as the cinematic equivalent of one of those conspiracy theory boards that you see in movies to show that a character is insane. It's hugely complicated, almost certainly nonsensical, yet somehow compelling to look at and experience. It's as pretentious as anything, but it's totally unique. I think the name is more or less false advertising--do not expect to actually learn anything. This seems to more be Godard trying to capture what he feels cinema is.

An attempt to tell not the history of cinema but the history of a century that would be that of cinema, or, he seems to want to say, it is the nineteenth century that through the invention of the cinema gives birth to a century that is perhaps still in want of the art, or the technique, or rather the mystery, that would be capable of discerning its essence. Elusive, but there are great things here, and in the end the attempt seems quite genuine. See also the reviews of the individual episodes.