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Notre Musique
Wellspring Media


9.3

based on 19 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 11 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

FILM:

MPAA RATING: Not Rated

Starring Sarah Adler, Nade Dieu, Rony Kramer, Jean-Christophe Bouvet, George Aguilar, Leticia Gutiérrez, Ferlyn Brass, and Simon Eine

Part poetry, part journalism, part philosophy, Jean-Luc Godard's Notre Musique is a timeless meditation on war as seen through the prisms of cinema, text and image. (Wellspring Media)

GENRE(S):	Drama \| Foreign
WRITTEN BY:	Jean-Luc Godard
DIRECTED BY:	Jean-Luc Godard
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: May 17, 2005 Video: May 17, 2005 Theatrical: November 24, 2004
RUNNING TIME:	80 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	France / Switzerland
LANGUAGE(S):	French (with English subtitles)

FIPRESCI Film of the Year, 2004 San Sebastián International Film Festival

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Visually sublime and intellectually dense, this is one of the extremely rare movies that prove cinema can be as complex and profound as the very greatest art works in any form.

100

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

Though it's a sad, somber, deeply questioning work, it's done with a light, loving spirit.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Notre Musique is really a poetic essay, masterfully intermixing the director's mournful-toned, philosophical narration with documentary and staged moments.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Elegant, insistent movie -- a great gray filmmaker's finest in years.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

If film is an art, it's because it's possible for somebody to make films like this.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Notre Musique is Godard's post-9/11 statement, a meditation on how war emerges from the eternal, and hypocritical, duality of human perception -- the sense that it's always ''the other'' who dies.

Variety Derek Elley

Recognizably Godard with its playfulness and wordplays, but deeply human at the same time.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Too touchy-feely for some hardcore Godardians, Notre Musique is the most lucid of the master's recent films.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

For one of the first times in his career Jean-Luc Godard has elected not to hector and harass his audience, and it seems to have paid off.

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

Mr. Godard treads on dangerous ground by linking the historical suffering of Jews and the Palestinians, but his sympathy for both people is so manifest, his sense of history so deep, that the film defies reductive readings.

Washington Post Philip Kennicott

A film about war and reconciliation, is deeply Christian, a study in humility and the moral uncertainty at the core of the Christian message.

LA Weekly Scott Foundas

Strikes me as one of Godard's most accessible works - one in which the graying, stubbly maestro, who turns 74 today, presents himself and his ideas to the audience in a less combative way than he sometimes has in the past.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

A film of flowing, redemptive beauty and poetry, at once immediate yet classic in its simplicity of form.

New York Post V.A. Musetto

It's a long way from the carefree days of "Breathless" and "Band of Outsiders," but then the world has changed since Godard made those movies 40 years ago.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Like a piece of music, Godard structures his film in three movements.

TV Guide Ken Fox

Alternately accessible and obscure, the film is almost too rich to digest at one sitting, but even if experiencing this remarkable films means latching onto just a few of its myriad ideas, it's still a richly rewarding encounter.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

A sophomore film major would be lucky to get a passing grade with such material.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

Notre Musique is a cry against war and man's inherent needs for tribalism and violence, a position that wouldn't start a good argument in a college cafeteria.

San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein

Lumpy.

The average user rating for this movie is 9.3 (out of 10) based on 11 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Jared SS gave it a9:
Beautiful...left me speechless, literally.

lodiza l. gave it a9:
This is a brilliant film.

Gloria M. gave it a9:
At age 75, Godard is still capable of redefining cinema. His rereading of shot-reverse shot is brilliant and inspiring. What a marvellous artist.

Vince H. gave it a10:
No review necessary. He is the greatest French filmmaker since Bresson, and certainly the most profound and influential of the past 50 years. See this movie at all costs if it is playing anywhere within 50 miles of you.

Manoel M. gave it a10:
Spetacular!! GODard is GOD of cinema!!

Fred L. gave it a 9:
Had the good fortune to see the new Goddard film, Notre Musique, when it opened in D.C. this past Friday at the new Landmark E Street Theater (a plush cineplex for art films...........I think my days at Dupont Circle are numbered!) At age 74, Goddard still retains his enfant terrible energy from the old days; ever the iconoclast, he provokes us, and forces us to take a fresh look at our shared societal assumptions that make our world violent and absurd. While I agree with Thomson (see review above) that the film involves a poetic and philosophical narrative on humankind's penchant for war, I believe Goddard goes many layers below, and explores the dichotomous thinking and tunnel vision which compels humanity to see humans and human events outside of their natural context, which is their relativistic nature. The point compels: when we lose our sense of relationship to each other (and ourselves), the inevitable result is violence. From a psychological perspective, Goddard might well be discussing the toxic phenomenon of projective identification. Whether as individuals or whole societies, we identify with those aspects of ourselves for which we are proud, and deny that which makes us feel guilty or ashamed. In our dealings with others, we project those unwanted aspects onto others, and then persecute those for that which we find intolerable within ourselves. And as a perverse coup de grace, those who are the targets of the projections, if sufficiently powerful, might actually act out the projections, and act in ways that are usually inconsistent with their natures (e.g. a normally compassionate individual suddenly becomes rageful and judgmental). Goddard, playing himself, discusses this concept within a basic element of the film shot: shot/reverse angle. When he presents photographs of different individuals in similar poses, we see the evident difference (man and woman in two photos), but might overlook that the two individuals contain exactly the same bearing. Hence, the irony: the greater our difference, the more possible the similarity if we only saw. But we don't see, and operating from the surface, we hate, persecute, maim, and kill. This concept can explain marital violence, self-hatred (despising ourselves for our unwanted parts), racial discrimination, sexism, and wars between nations. As we lose our sense of our relative nature in relationship to each other, the more likely we are to expedite our own demise. Even in Heaven, one of the main characters ascends to a bucolic setting, which the U.S. Marines surround and guard with barbed wire and guns to the sound of their hymn. For Goddard, even our contradictions await us in the beyond.

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Notre Musique Wellspring Media

Notre Musique
Wellspring Media