Une Femme est une Femme

Most of Godard's early movies are so much of their particular time that they'll need explanatory footnotes before long. This was the first of his colour/cinemascope tributes to the changing moods of Karina (his then wife); the film's own soundtrack notes that it might equally be a comedy or a tragedy because it's certainly a masterpiece. It has a thin thread of plot about Karina's desire to get pregnant, it flanks her with the pragmatic Brialy on one side and the romantic Belmondo on the other, then stands all of them in the shadow of MGM musical stars of the '40s and '50s, and it collages these elements together with sundry gags, worries, contradictions and asides into a kind of movie that nobody had seen before. The result is brash, defiant, gaudy and infinitely fragile.