Série noire

Maybe not essential Godard, but still woefully obscure. Despite being "just" a TV commission, it feels very much of a piece with his other films from this period, situated somewhere between Detective and King Lear. Alas, being shot on video also means that it's somewhat visually clumsier than his best work. The experiments with visual effects here feel both like an extension of Slow Motion and a look ahead toward Histoire(s) du cinéma, but fortunately it's much more playful than the latter.