Linklater’s vibrant tribute to Godard captures the brilliance, egos and accidents behind a film that sparked a revolution.
This affectionate homage to a slice of urban French cool that has rarely been equalled is also a nostalgic tribute to a time and place of extraordinary creative ferment and cinematic sex appeal.
Nouvelle Vague 2025
| Aug 12 |
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“If being locked in the Criterion Closet for a couple of hours sounds like heaven, Richard Linklater has made the perfect film for you. It’s a playful, black-and-white making-of story for Jean-Luc Godard’s New Wave classic Breathless – À bout de souffle to the cinephile crowd – that captures a revolutionary moment in cinema history with reverence and a touch of cheek.
You’ll probably know movies that backdrop the story: Godard’s 1960 crime drama Breathless is the key text, of course, but Truffaut’s Cannes premiere of The 400 Blows is also recreated with a wink to contemporary Cannes-goers…
Linklater cleverly homages Godard’s style with handheld cameras, unsynced sound, choppy editing and scratchy celluloid, all framed in the same boxy 1:37 aspect ratio as Breathless. His cast of first-timers is impressive, too. Aubry Dullin is fabulous as Belmondo, the angelic ex-boxer whose guilelessness lends his bandit a disarming quality.
For devoted film lovers, Nouvelle Vague is a must-see – a joyful homage to the art of cinema that’ll have you queuing at your local repertory cinema as soon as the credits roll.” — Phil de Semlyen, Time Out