Home | Movies By Year | Movies from 1960


Le petit soldat

Buy Le petit soldat now from Amazon

First, read the Wikipedia article. Then, scroll down to see what other TopShelfReviews readers thought about the movie. And once you've experienced the movie, tell everyone what you thought about it.

Wikipedia article




'Le petit soldat' is a French film, written and directed by French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard in 1960, but not released until 1963. It was Godard's third film released with Anna Karina, who starred as Vronica Dreyer alongside Michel Subor (as Bruno Forestier).

Plot



During the Algerian War, Bruno Forestier lives in Geneva to escape the enlistment in France. Working for a La Main Rouge, he is ordered to kill Palivoda, who is pro-FLN (National Liberation Front of Algeria), to prove he is not a double agent. Refusal and hesitation keep him from carrying out the assassination.

Meanwhile, he meets and falls in love with Vronica Dreyer, who helped the FLN. Bruno plans to leave with her for Brazil, but is captured and tortured by Algerian revolutionaries.

He escapes, and agrees to kill Palivoda for the French in exchange for passage to Brazil for himself and Vronica. However, the French discover Vronica's ties to the FLN, and torture her to death.

Themes



The situation in Algeria and the denunciation of the use of torture by both sides are the main themes of the movie.

The film shows a typical theme of Jean-Luc Godard, developed in his later works: interrogation about the nature of cinema (Bruno Forestier in the movie: "'La photographie, c'est la vrit, et le cinma, c'est vingt-quatre fois la vrit par seconde'" "Photography is truth, and cinema is truth 24 times per second") and the image (the photo-shoot of Vronica).

Release



The film was banned in France until January 1963, because of the presence of torture scenes. This was Godard's second feature film (after ' bout de souffle') but was released as his fourth movie. This is the first of Jean-Luc Godard's movies starring Anna Karina, who became his wife soon after the filming. She would go on to become the quintessential Godard actress.

Reception



'Le petit soldat' has received generally positive reviews since release; review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports 80% approval among 15 critics. In a retrospective review, Roger Ebert awarded it a full four stars.

References




Buy Le petit soldat now from Amazon

<-- Return to movies from 1960



This work is released under CC-BY-SA. Some or all of this content attributed to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1098711454.