Bande à part

The first Godard I've watched - probably, the first out-and-out 'nouvelle vague' film I've watched, actually - and I've been left thinking that while they're probably a bit of an acquired taste, it's likely to be a taste worth acquiring. I don't think it's stretching the point to describe Bande à part as postmodern - the metafictional/intertextual/breaking-of-the-third-wall aspects of the film are integral, as is its wilfully flippant attitude towards narrative - but it also has a distinctive (b&w) melancholy, a wistfulness, which has as much to do with the film's overall tone as its more brazen structural and stylistic affectations; its most whimsical elements perhaps partake of both those streams. Arthur, Franz and Odile somehow avoid graspability just as does the plot and direction of the film as a whole; it all has an effect that can't quite be described.