MovieChat Forums > La chinoise (1968) Discussion > Brilliant, Clever, Surreal...And Very Un...

Brilliant, Clever, Surreal...And Very Underrated

posted 18 years ago by Different_Voices
5 replies | jump to latest

I think this movie is pure genius. And yet sadly, its very underrated.
Some of the scenes are just God. That's a bit of weird adjective but I'm going to run with it anyway...

I just love the chilling surreality of the scene where the woman sits behind the stacks of Mao's Little Red book with her face covered in red paint, firing away with the plastic toy gun/radio.

On top of that some of the scenes are really striking. I adore the part where the woman dresses up in a black sack and tells us this is how people stare at Ethnic people in the street. It's just so clever!

Well that's my little rant. I just thought there was a serious lack of people actually talk about the film itself on these boards...That's my ten cents worth anyhoo...

It is impossible to experience one's own death objectively and still carry a tune

[–] 18 years ago

[deleted]

[–] MovieMan0283part2 18 years ago

Interesting, why would you say this? The only Godard film I could really think of as touching is My Life to Live, and perhaps parts of Masculin-Feminin. What was it about La Chinoise that struck your emotions? There is a nice bittersweet feeling to the ending, I'll admit. (By the way, this is one of my favorite Godard films, mostly for its conceptual brilliance rather than any emotional core but there is something gravely romantic about it, particularly in the last part: I'm thinking particularly of the scene on the train - mostly for how it's lit - and the autumnal feeling at the end, already referred to by me).

[–] buby1987 16 years ago

It struck me watching the DVD that John Lennon must have seen this film and was inspired to write his hit song "Revolution." It certainly came out in the right time frame -- late 67/early 68. In the song, Lennon writes, "If you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, that ain't gonna make it anyone anyhow," which seems inspired by some of the imagery of the film (along with the non-sexual nature of the coed living arrangements). There's also this line: "But when you talk about destruction, don't you know you can count me out." And this line: "You better free your mind instead," which seems pointed at the well-heeled dilletantes depicted in this film who spout Maoist propaganda without deep self-inquiry.

Also, in the late 60's and early 70's, Lennon started to use Soviet-inspired imagery in his work, from the clothes he wore to album covers. It was all part of the chicness of Mao, Che and Castro back in that era.

This film is an interesting time capsule, and proves something to me -- that the French were right about Vietnam but wrong about communism as a viable solution to Europe's ills, whereas the U.S. was wrong about Vietnam but right about communism in Europe.

[–] meldrone 14 years ago

"What do your parents do?"

"Own factories or something."

[–] henrimaine 11 years ago

I risk sounding very stupid and "bourgeois", but the film would have been better if it had been more like a "normal film". The overall story-line was very intriguing - somebody's parents go away for the summer and a bunch of college kids gather to live in their apartment and do revolution. But because it was presented as some experimental play, I only understood this central story-line at the end of the film. And of course such traditional elements like narrative or character development were thrown overboard in this film - that might have been symbolic of some new proletarian communist art, but it made the film so much more difficult to follow.