Excellent film that loses its way at the end

I see the film as a satire of pure nihilism. Godard is looking at what society does to the individual with contempt, which has really been his project all along hasn't it? I sincerely doubt that Godard supports the revolutionaries as they are depicted in this particular film. The film seems to suggest that they are merely the flip side of the bourgeoisie, both sides being manifestations of the soul crushing nihilism of modernity.

The film is clearly the film of a director gone mad. Godard is attracted to the intellectual position of the revolutionaries, but disturbed by their ideological obstinancy and disregard for human life; equally, Godard was always (at least with his early films) attracted to and intrigued by productive capacity of capitalism embodied by bourgeoisie lifestyle: car culture, advertising, pop art, modernity in general, etc. but repulsed by the spiritual destruction inherent within a capitalist society of uniformity. Both communism and capitalism destroy the individual, and Godard has always had an existential streak which resisted such requisites for conformity.

I think the difficulty in trying to reconcile Godard's views with our preconceptions is that he doesn't necessarily depict a particular viewpoint. Godard was always in pursuit of unmediated images which depicted life as it is experienced and lived. He is depicting both capitalists and communists with equal fascination and repulsion. The violence of the film is at once comical (red paint signifying blood) and brutal (violence against animals symbolic of that slaughterhouse where individuals go to be butchered called society).

Americans in particular may not fully respect Godard's ideological ambivalence to revolution in general, but because of his French context, it seems to me that considering the history of the French Revolution, he is uniquely aware of both the sincere idealistic reasoning that guides revolution and the autocannibalistic tendency of revolutionaries after the revolution is in progress. When the French reflect about revolution, they are confronted with the realities of the Reign of Terror, the guillotine, and the eventual rise to power of Napoleon...All these things were carried out, ironically, in pursuit of a society founded upon principles of rational humanism; the pursuit of intellectual order descending into chaos.

With Weekend, Godard examines the pitfalls of both the bourgeoisie and the revolutionaries with fascination and disgust. The tone of the film is like a high-brow feature length episode of South Park by way of Luis Bunuel and Bertolt Brecht. His intention was definitely provocative, as it is with all art. Why is that conclusion problematic?

And you will know my name is The Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee!

I love movies that lose its own plot and then can't find it anywhere.

Especially when it is done with humor and craftsmanship.


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I found it began by being lost, but found its way in the end.

We've met before, haven't we?

Raiden's response is excellent. I'd just add that perhaps Godard's point is simply that the revolutionaries are an inevitable consequence of the behaviour of the bourgeoisie. That doesn't require him to support them, he's just describing reality as he sees it. He clearly became more sympathetic to the political left in the years following.