The Image Book
French Art House • 1h 24m
Jean-Luc Godard • Switzerland • 2018 • Does art inform reality, or vice versa?
Fragments of cinema, canonical and obscure, fill the frame. They appear acid-washed, saturated, disintegrating. Films by Roberto Rossellini, Abderrahmane Sissako, Ridley Scott—and Godard himself—feature scenes of war, torture, unmitigated brutality. Does art inform reality, or vice versa? A low, gravelly voice posits ontological inquiries into a medium that seeks to communicate, with varying degrees of success.
Casting his encyclopedic eye upon histories of violence that, ostensibly, remain inextricable from the medium itself, The Image Book is a dizzying, associative journey through one of the greatest cinematic minds of the century. Jean-Luc Godard’s film premiered at IFFR - International Film Festival Rotterdam, San Sebastián, Toronto and Cannes, where it won a Special Palme d’Or. The Image Book is a New York Times Critic's Pick.
Up Next in French Art House
-
The Measure of a Man
Stéphane Brizé • France • 2015 • A powerful, deeply troubling vision of modern labor.
Middle-aged Thierry is unemployed. Despite working the same job for many years, he has been laid off, and is now bein...
-
The Well-Digger's Daughter
Daniel Auteuil • France • 2011 • Tradition collides with a girl's dreams in mid-century France.
Pascal Amoretti is a poor but dignified man, a widower raising several young daughters. All day he c...
-
Tip Top
Serge Bozon • France • 2013 • An absurdist police procedural starring Isabelle Huppert.
In the small French town of Villeneuve, an Algerian informant has been found murdered. Two female detectives soon arrive from P...
