“Alphaville” was made in 1965 By Jean-Pierre Godot, the bad boy of the French New Wave, and is his response to dystopic visions like “Metropolis” and “Brave New World.” It owes most of its actual ideas to the latter, but don’t start thinking that it’s heavy on ideas. There are plenty of things in Alphaville that aren’t thought out very clearly, but you’re not supposed to notice. Instead, like most of the French New Wave, you’re supposed to get caught up in its “style,” which I think means the ways it’s not made like other movies.
The plot, as far as there is one, (I’ll be honest: I had to trust the Wikipedia plot synopsis to fill in some spots) goes like this: a hard-boiled detective-type secret agent Lemmy Caution is sent to the planet Alphaville to search out a fellow agent, who has dropped off the radar. Or maybe he’s sent there to kill the mastermind behind Alpha 60, the computer that runs the world. Anyway, he does both, and in the process manages to fall in love with the mastermind’s daughter, to stir up dissension among the ranks, and to ask the supercomputer a question that causes it to self-destruct. He rides away from the disintegrating planet with the daughter in tow, and then comes one of hokiest love scenes in cinema. If you think I ruined the movie for you by telling you what happens, you’re wrong.
The movie is littered with little jokes from the director to the audience – this, I guess, is what passes for style. In one scene, it is explained to us that the uniformity of Alphaville was achieved by executing anyone who refused to conform, and that the executions took place via gas in a movie theater, while the victims watched a show. Ahem. Also, our hero, or whatever he is, has been borrowed from a series of French B noir movies. The effect is something like Sam Spade in Space. But Space doesn’t look any different than Paris, and Caution’s “spaceship” is a white Ford Galaxy. l always knew that car was special. The tyrant supercomputer, Alpha 60, has banned poetry and replaced the Bible with an oft-edited dictionary, but speaks in lines from Jorge Luis Borges. Eh?
There are plenty of things in this movie that are either jokes I don’t get (maybe I’m too young?) or else just don’t make any sense. Men randomly attack Caution, and he beats them up or shoots them as if nothing unusual had happened. (It’s almost like playing an old video game: these guys come out of the walls, and you kill them to keep going.) Nobody else seems to notice them, and I began to wonder if they were figments of his imagination. The women are so sexually willing that they might be robots created for that purpose – especially as they identify as “Seductress, Third Class,” and have identifying numbers on their necks. The movie never explains one way or the other. There is plenty of voiceover to go around (I hate voiceover), sometimes by Caution, sometimes by Alpha 60 – who speaks in a voice that sounds like Dr. Claw from the “Inspector Gadget” cartoons.
Near the end, Godot starts inserting negatives of shots – then switching back to the positive, and for no apparent reason. And, in perhaps the most bizarre scene in the movie, dissenters are shot in front of a swimming pool, and then their bodies are incorporated into a synchronized swimming routine.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcEA_C60Oow]
In his Great Movies review of Metropolis, Roger Ebert listed Alphaville as one of the many movies influenced by that great silent flick. But I disagree: if anything, Godot’s set construction is a reaction against visions like Metropolis. It’s much more like Jaque Tati’s Playtime (though that film was made two years later) — the impersonal architecture looks like the workings of a computer. Godot is saying that a future run by computers and robots could never birth the fantastic architecture of movies like Metropolis and Blade Runner – architecture that sparks the imagination. This, in the end, works against him – this movie may be a more “realistic” dystopic vision of a technological future – but as a movie, it’s not nearly as fun to look at.
According to Andrew Sarris’ Criterion Collection essay, “You don’t have to be French to enjoy Alphaville. But you have to love movies with high-minded seriousness.” I’m not sure if he means you have to love high minded, serious movies, or that you have to be high minded and serious in your love for movies. Either way, I guess I’m out. Alphaville is full of stylistic tricks and director’s little trademarks and winks, but is pretty empty when it comes to things like concept, story, characterization, and pacing. It’s not much fun to watch.
Recommended if you’re a Godot/French New Wave freak, or a dystopic freak, or hey, just a freak. (It also might be fun under the right chemical conditions.)
Not Recommended if you’re actually looking for something coherent, intelligent, and/or entertaining.
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