Veteran Jean-Luc Godard shows he still kicking, reminding us that culture is always connected to politics, and offering some of the press conference space for 'Notre Musique', presented out of competition, to one of the cultural workers that is here in Cannes to air grievances about situation of unemployment cuts by the present government.
"Unemployment is not an accident but a reality", stated the union representative, "and we need to find new sources when there is not enough money".
The gesture by Godard demonstrated his solidarity with the grievances of the cultural worker rights - an issue which has received broad support in the French arts. A squirmish with the police injured one journalist in the manifestation of cultural workers at Cannes, with an apology from the festival organizers.

As for the film, 'Notre Musique 'Godard presents a piece where he tries to show differences between the actors and the characters, a kind of 'documentary character'. This includes the poet Mahmoud Darwich, writer Pierre Bergounioux and Godard who teaches about cinema in the film (such as the significance following a shot with a countershot).
The New Wave master's film is a poetic art house piece, a reflection on the wars of today. Situated in Sarajevo, during a European book conference, it also presents a discussion of the Middle East conflict with different voices.

There are three chapters or kingdoms:“Kingdom 1: Hell,((montage exposé of carnage of war)”, “Kingdom 2: Purgatory,(Sarajevo sequence)” and “Kingdom 3: Heaven,(what happened to a German Catholic girl who committed suicide in 1943)”. 'Notre Musique' not only mixes actors and characters, intellectual and common voices, but music and literary signatures such as Homer, Julien Green,Céline and Faulkner.

Godard hopes to go to Sarajevo when the cinemas are open and the journalists have left. He dislikes digital work, and using cinematic terms, calls the digital product 'positive' with no 'negative' whereas "film is a negative that produces a positive".





Moira Sullivan