the godard films that stick out as real outliers in his early career are the ones that share a continuity with the 80s films. broken up by the militant period in the 70s, the few sincere narratives of his early career seem so strangely arbitrary. why did he make a film about prostitutes in paris? he read an article and found the subject moving enough to make a film that functions like a conventional melodrama. this is possibly the single LEAST experimental film of this period. maybe he wanted to show deference to the gravity of the topic so he restrained himself (for a godard film, the sound design here is peaceful). he made a movie the audience would identify with, which is precisely the movie he spent most of his career deconstructing.
it’s a beautiful film, no doubt. very successful. one of his most straightforward and compelling films from this half of his career. with avant-garde artists, i will sometimes forget that there is (generally) a deep mastery of craft underlying the style. one might think that godard is incapable of making a “normal” movie. but there is no doubt here that he was in command of the medium from the earliest years and could make a narrative feature without all the weird digressions. he could even do it while integrating a few formal tricks that do an excellent job heightening the emotionality of the film. BUT i have certain misgivings about his choice of this story. maybe he chose it because—it’s just a french thing. to the french, maybe it doesn’t seem like such a strange choice. or maybe he hadn’t (yet) discovered a consistent principle for choosing his narratives.