Alphaville

I had a huge paper due for my English class, a research paper in fact. I chose to write on Jean-Luc Godard and Philippe Garrel, and not because I have the hugest crush on this son Louis Garrel (it could be one reason though!). The whole Nouvelle Vague movement is pretty interesting itself, but I also had an excuse for watching a ton of Godard movies. Shooting two birds with one stone, right?
Anyways, the first Godard film I chose to watch was 'Alphaville', a 1965 sci-fi movie. It's not like the Hollywood type of sci-fi, but rather like a mix of art deco and George Orwell's 1984. Alphaville is a small town built under the ideas of Confucianism, and is a state run by a machine called Alpha 60. Eddie Constantine plays Lemmy Caution, a secret agent sent from the Outlands to Alphaville, on a mission to kill the three leaders of the eerie society, while Anna Karina is Natasha Von Braun, the daughter of one of those leaders. Natasha speaks only in quotes from poetry, and she has a lack of emotions, like the rest of Alphaville's citizens. Plus, most of the women are brainwashed to please men, but Lemmy was hard as a rock and didn't give in.
Anna Karina and Eddie Constantine were the best combination for me to get into Godard's cinematography. This is a perfect black-and-white film to see on a rainy day, drinking some hot chocolate and snuggling up in a blanket.