The Cinematheque

“The most ravishing and romantic film ever made has only improved with age.”

Amy Taubin, Village Voice

A work of giddy, glorious spontaneity and self-reflexivity, Pierrot le fou is one of the quintessential achievements of Godard’s nouvelle vague period. It’s also something of a Godard compendium, referring back to earlier films (the ironic gangster cool of Breathless and Band of Outsiders) and anticipating future ones (the dazzling social analysis, the apocalyptic visions, of Two or Three Things I Know About Her and Weekend). After Ferdinand (Jean-Paul Belmondo), a jaded TV exec, abandons wife and child for Marianne (Anna Karina), the family’s babysitter, the two lovers set out on a Bonnie-and-Clyde-like trek to the south of France. Godard described Pierrot le fou as ​“the story of the last romantic couple.” The film abounds in explosive primary colours, Brechtian asides, and abrupt shifts in tone and mood. With its tragic exploration of amour fou and the transience of love, Pierrot is one of the most uncommonly emotional works in the Godard canon.

In French with English subtitles

“A bit like visiting another planet; it’s an explosion of color, sound, music, passion, violence, and wit.”

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader

“Godard’s eye-popping masterpiece.”

Sam Wigley, Sight and Sound