Made in U.S.A.

This is currently screening on limited engagement (one cinema - two weeks only) in NY, and I didn't want to miss the chance to see a Godard on the big screen - and in colour, too! As usual with the director, everything's up for grabs, but particularly the 'cinematic' nature of the film itself - this is the most overtly metacinematic of his films that I've seen. It's based on a Donald Westlake novel, so the genre is 'thriller', with Anna Karina trying to get to the bottom of a possible politicial conspiracy that has seen her former lover Richard killed in Atlantic City, but its stop-start rhythms, repetitions, and excisions of critical parts (as well as irrelevant details - Richard's surname is drowned out by a ringing telephone, an overhead plane, or something else, every time it's spoken...presumably it was in homage to this that Tarantino did something similar in Kill Bill), it's calculated to frustrate any ordinary narrative drive or expectation. It's a delight; the dialogue in this one is particularly good.