The French template

Many Indian filmmakers have taken inspiration from Jean-Luc Godard, who passed away recently

- POOJA BIRAIA JAISWAL

In the theatrical release, Adieu Godard, directed by Amartya Bhattacharyya, Ananda, an uneducated, lanky old man in a remote village in Odisha, is addicted to pornography. He cycles long distances every day to bag DVDs of porn films with deceptive covers. He then watches it at home with his crew of four, much to the chagrin of his wife and grown-up daughter. One day, a DVD fails to do its job, and instead plays the French cult classic Breathless, directed by Jean-Luc Godard. Annoyed that the film offered “no song, dance, fight and romance”, Ananda’s friends diss him, but he remains captivated by the film. The chance encounter turns Ananda into an Godard fan and he decides to introduce the French filmmaker to his village in order to “make people think and open up their minds”. Ananda’s fascination with Godard bears semblance to Bhattacharyya’s fascination with the iconoclastic French filmmaker who is known to have championed a spontaneous, resolutely modern, intensely free and just-pick-up-a-camera-and-start-shooting style of filming. Godard died earlier this month at the age of 91 by assisted suicide.

The 123-minute-long film comes across as a tribute to the world’s most acclaimed directors, known for classics that broke conventional notions and helped kickstart a new way of filmmaking with handheld cameras, jump cuts and existential dialogues. Godard’s famous line, “A movie should have a beginning, a middle, and an end, but not necessarily in that order” became the byword of the new wave movement, and his influence spread far and wide, including in India.