Indeed, this European film was a strange one. The disclaimers given before watching the movie about European films being somewhat “weird” were proven by Jean-Luc Godard’s award winning movie, A Woman is a Woman. Despite the film being strange, the various elements showcased in the movie, such as the piano background that plays and suddenly stops, the play of lights, perfectly shot scenes and backgrounds, the consistent red tones, etc., worked together beautifully to create the masterpiece that it is. It was a movie that made me want to keep on watching albeit having to read the subtitles all the way from the back of the room.

The film brought a new perspective on love. It depicts love as a very playful, childish, and quirky concept. The movie surely strayed away from typical romantic comedy films wherein the male character is the one who chases the female. Despite Emile continuously rejecting Angela’s desire to become pregnant, their relationship can be described as an open relationship because of the lack of exclusivity. Emile did not see any problem with the fact that his girlfriend strips in a club. He was even fine with the thought of Angela and his best friend, Alfred, sleeping together. Being raised in this conservative Filipino society, I got pretty confused. This made me think, are European relationships really this open? But maybe it’s just the strange plot of the film. It took a while for me to realize their routine before going to bed—using book covers to communicate a message with each other. At first, I thought they were just competing with one another whether who can read the most books within the night. When I finally understood, I found it funny. It is probably through being tricksy and prankish with one another that they are able to make their strange relationship work. I believe this teaches us an important thing about love: that there’s always something unique, may it be inside jokes or quirks, that leaves both parties wanting more of each other even in the face of problems.

Also, Anna Karina portrayed Angela in such a way that made her a model of women empowerment. The way Angela strolled the Parisian streets with so much confidence and regard for herself, the way she put on her make-up and did her hair, the way she dressed and carried herself, the way she asserted herself and knew what she wanted, the way she messed up on cooking for Emile, and most importantly, the way she found no problem in her job as a stripper, all emphasized Angela’s fierce femininity and womanhood. Angela’s strong female character inspires women to be as confident as she is in her own skin. She somehow proves that not all women can do domestic chores like cooking for her boyfriend/husband and instead, focus on a non-conventional, sexual and seductive career that exposes her feminine body, yet this does not make her any less of a person. She is still able to live her life the way she wants and make everyone fall on their knees. It’s truly quite a tragedy for people who get in her way.

 

Coming into this course, I expected to watch films that are different and unique compared to those that I usually watch. To start the course, A Woman is a Woman was the perfect movie to set the mood and my expectations for the rest of the films that we will be watching throughout the semester. It was visually playful, weirdly different, and entertaining. It was visually playful despite being released in 1961 since I initially expected it to look like the usual old films. I would consider this film to be weirdly different because it was not the typical story that I see in movies. The use of music, the unusual way that the movie was shot, the dialogues, and the times that the characters acknowledged the presence of the camera were some of the things that made the film different. One of the things that was quite disturbing for me at the start was the bursts of music that also stopped abruptly, which was a bit confusing for me since I did not see the point in it. For instance, one of the scenes that highlighted the play on music was when the soundtrack stopped whenever the character sings, which was very contradictory but somehow, it works when you look at the entirety of the film. In addition, Godard was able to add a comedic element to the movie to keep the viewers engaged and intrigued by whatever was happening.

The plot was also very different, portraying some of the qualities and cultural differences in European countries. Focusing on three main characters, Angela’s portrayal showed how she was desperate to have a child with Emile, her partner, who refused to have one. This led to her frustration throughout the movie which ends up with her sleeping with Alfred, Emile’s best friend, who liked her back. In the end, Emile realizes that he wanted to be the father if she bears a child so he also gives in. The ending perfectly showcased the title of a woman is a woman in terms of knowing what she wants and knowing how to get it regardless of whatever she has to do to get it. In my opinion, one of the problematic things in the film is a lack of the back story or the background of the characters to show how the story came about and why they act the way they do. It did not allow for the audience to really connect with the characters in the movie and sometimes drifted from its plot causing confusion and even unanswered questions for the viewers.

Godard portrays neo realism in this film as he focuses on the natural and realistic portrayal of things. This can be seen in the subtle mistakes that the director allows to be part of the film which added to the qualities that made it unusual in certain ways, but it works. Some scenes come out of nowhere and did not really explain why it became that way that was really confusing for me, but it surely left me intrigued. This also brought a funny aspect to the film that was enjoyable for the viewers despite its non-conventional methods, especially for me who loves movies and who wants to explore more types of films.

Despite being different, the movie was overall entertaining with the visual display and playfulness of the characters that brought life to the film. It was a great movie to start off the semester with and to give us a tease of what to expect in this film class.

Having taken a film class before this semester, I have seen a few european films, and I found them to be unusual because they do not follow the mainstream way of Hollywood narratives. The film A Woman is a Woman is a strange yet unique and interesting film because while the plot is straight-forward, the film’s characters, music, and visuals help bring a comedic and entertaining effect to the atmosphere of the film. The acting of the characters Emile and Angela caught my attention because of how they are always arguing and acting very childish. During the scene when they are about to sleep and did not want to talk to each other, each of them used the title of books to give each other a message. I also found it unusual how Emile kept refusing to give Angela a child and was okay with her trying to sleep with other men because if he truly loved her, he would not be ok with that. Anna can be also seen as a childish character because of how desperate she is to get pregnant. The music also helped bring a light tone to the film like during the scene of Angela’s performance as an exotic dancer, but I also noticed there would be times the music in other scenes would be cut out of nowhere and continue after.

Even though the plot of the film is not that intricate, the film’s strong points were its aesthetically pleasing visual of colors. One example is during the scene of Angela’s performance in the dancer setting because we can see her wearing a white sailor outfit against a bright red background. Then later on we see there is a light machine which shines colors of blue, green and purple on the performance. There are also scenes wherein I noticed the bathroom of their apartment shows colorful lights through the glass of the door. The film also makes use of the costume of characters to help with the colorful visuals. This can be seen in the clothes of Anna which are usually bright red, and Emile’s blue suit. All these aspects help contribute to the beautiful visuals of the film.

This film can be seen as an art cinema film because of how it emphasized the way of conveying the story rather than what the story was about. Even though the film’s plot is simple, it was still interesting because it also showed me the stereotypes of the two genders and yet how the two genders are not that different. Anna is stereotyped to be a woman whose main purpose is to bear children because that is all she wants and thinks about. Aside from that I also noticed that these Anna and Emile are not that different because of their childish acting. It showed that men and women can both be irrational and act in strange ways. Overall I enjoyed watching this film because of the entertaining mix of character acting and creative visuals. It was an unusual film because it gave me a fresh and entertaining experience of romantic films.

Jean-Luc Godard’s A Woman is a Woman revolves around the intertwined relationship of a stripper named Angela, her boyfriend Emile, and his best friend Alfred. Angela, desperate for a baby, seems to be willing to pull out all the stops in order to be able to conceive, even giving Emile, who is repulsed by the idea of having a child, an ultimatum and actually cheating on him with Alfred. The French film follows Angela’s constant back and forth between the two men coupled with odd interludes of silent scenes and musical scores. For a film that was meant to be a musical, I couldn’t help but get the feel of a silent comedy. By comparison, it wasn’t quite the type of musical I had ever watched, no characters randomly breaking out into song and dance numbers, aside from Angela’s amateurish performance at the sleazy bar.

It was undoubtedly one of the weirdest foreign-made films I have come to watch, unlike the spread of British films I was accustomed to, but with a storyline that was not particularly ground breaking nor impactful for a European Film class. Admittedly, I had been a little judgmental throughout watching the film, I was so used to big-budgeted blockbuster movies with their all-star cast and incredulous special effects, basically what Speidel refers to as Hollywood and mainstream narratives. Old films and foreign cinema were things I tend to veer away from, so the 1961 French film was definitely something new. Despite this, it was refreshing to see how cinema was like in its early stages—before its evolution into the oversaturated movies we see today. Also, an exposure to films created in a culture completely different from mine or what I was used to was something I took into account when I was enlisting in this European Film class.

A Woman is a Woman is a seemingly light film that plays its part as a romance movie yet, it still manages to pay close attention to the details. This, I think, is what makes the film a great one, maybe even a classic to some. From the very beginning, the audience is greeted by French words and names in a large, retro Hollywood font. Some musical choices were fitting to the scene, but others weren’t, almost as if to intentionally make the feel of the movie awkward. And then there were more visual details, the couple making out in the same spot over several days was a weird addition, but the scenes with book titles were incredibly smart and well-played. The aesthetic of Angela and Emile’s apartment, with its multiple balconies, random bicycle, hanging clothes dryer, and neon bathroom lights was odd but fitting enough for the odd film. The scene wherein Angela looks at the photo of Emile and another girl, with the back and forth shots of Angela, the photo, and Alfred, partnered with the emotional song from the jukebox forced the audience to be confronted by what Angela was feeling in that moment.

Looking past these details, I still couldn’t help but feel detached from the characters. The audience doesn’t really fall in love with any of their stark personalities other than Anna Karina’s beautiful looks. There isn’t an understanding about where all these things are coming from—why did Angela randomly and instantaneously yearn to be a mother? Just because it was in her horoscope? Why was Emile so flagrantly irate at Angela? Overall, the movie had a few loose strings and random details (or maybe I’m just not as informed and understanding quite yet!), but it was a good, light start to a class on European Film.

 

A Woman is a Woman is a simple movie with a certainly unique execution. The plot mainly concerns an exotic dancer named Angela and her relationship with her boyfriend Emile, which becomes rocky when Angela decides she wants to have a child.

The way the movie is presented is unique in that it is almost like a musical or a stage play. There is perky music in the background, the way the characters move are almost animated and non-realistic, and there are even numbers where the characters sing or dance. And yet something that the movie chooses to do during these scenes is that it randomly shuts off the music at certain parts of the film. I found it a bit weird to say the least, but I believe it may have been part of the movie’s underlying execution – despite all the singing, dancing, and music, it is not a musical, it is about this couple struggling through something in their relationship and the silence means reality.

In connection to this, I think one thing about the movie that I noticed as well was that the ridiculousness of several of the antics in the film work to emphasize the plight of the main characters instead of existing merely for the sake of absurdity. Cases of this type of absurdities in the film include Emile randomly riding his bicycle around their apartment, an egg that Angela flips into the air staying there until she returns from the telephone, and an argument between the couple that culminates in both of them picking up the entire lampshade, going to the bookshelf in their apartment, and then showing specific parts of book titles to represent how the other feels about the other in the heat of the moment. 

Furthermore, the ridiculousness of these scenes also seem to amplify the central conflict – Angela wants to have a baby so bad that she actually considers the option to get pregnant by someone who is not her romantic partner and even does it near the end of the film. Emile as well is shown to not be fully uninterested, as he is shown going as far as to ask random strangers on the street if they would be willing to give Angela the baby she desires.

Through these scenes, it really goes to show how despite the ridiculousness of the relationship and the ridiculousness of the film’s events, the central love story is unbothered. Though they may argue and they may act as if they hate each other, they never really leave and they never really lose the love they have for each other (as even by the end of the film, Emile finally gives in just so there is a chance that the baby is his). And that, ultimately, is likely the central core and heart of the film. Yes the film is over the top, yes it is too theatrical, yes it is too ridiculous of a premise to accept in reality. But stripped down to its core, it is a story about love and the various absurdities that come with it.

A Woman is a Woman by Jean-Luc Godard

                When our professor explained that this would be the first movie that we would watch, talking about how the plot was on a woman (a prostitute nonetheless) who wanted to get pregnant, yet her husband did not want a child (so she slept with someone else) was kind of easy to understand. A “neorealism musical” was a heavy term to swallow right off the bat. The musical part I got but neorealism? A modified form of reality? I have never watched a movie that would present itself as ‘neorealist’ At first thought, okay? so what? What would be so special about this movie that it would make it the very first movie we would watch on a class on European Films? The plot was not anything about Europe as a culture or something that was specific to just the continent. It was a story I could see anywhere else, why would we have to watch this one specifically? But then the first few minutes started, and I realized I had no idea what I was talking about at all.

                The beginning was loud. Big fonts that took up the entire screen with bright colours, presenting the actors, the director, producers, and the like. It was all very theatrical. And upon us meeting the protagonist, Angela, she herself was wearing white, seemingly standing out against the other people around her. As the film progressed I realized how different and divergent it was from the usual films that I have watched in the past. Full of random fourth wall breaking, cuts in the musical score when Angela would be talking on the phone with her husband, Emile, to a magical door that when walking through it would mean an automatic change of clothes. The movie turns into more than just a string of scenes telling a story, but it becomes a piece of moving art. Not to say that most movies are not art itself but there was a way in which the movie created the scenes, the score, the dialogue (or even the lack here of), the colours used, everything was important to make the story a visual spectacle for the viewer.

                What made me love the movie in the end were the last few scenes. After realizing that Angela has slept with someone else, Emile (with Angela’s help) decide to have sex as to perhaps cancel out the fact that she may be having someone else’s baby. They realized how great of a plan this is until after Emile finally realizes that Angela tricked him into finally having a baby. “Damn you, woman,” Emile says. “Not damn me, but dame me,” Angela replies and faces to the audience to wink at the camera. That last scene for me helped wrap up the entire movie and helped encompass the title of the movie, A woman is a woman. A woman who knows what she wants in life and how to get it no matter what the cost. A woman is a woman. What else can she be?

The film, A Woman is a woman, was not the typical love story of a movie for me. It was centered around Angela, who worked as a dancer and performer in a bar. I believe she was quite determined to get a baby. It first started when she read in her horoscope from a newspaper with her friend that something romantic will happen to her in the near future. This then led her to have two admirers which were Emile and Alfred. She would choose Emile and live with him despite the persistence of Alfred. Later on, she would desire for a baby. One of the ways she showed this was when she placed a pillow inside her clothes to see how she would look if she was pregnant. What caught my attention was how committed her partner, Emile, was to not have a child with her. A manifestation of this was how he invited Alfred, who was his best friend and admirer of Angela, to his house and even allowed him to spend time with Angela in the bathroom to have a baby however the deed did not push through. In fact, he even explicitly told Alfred to impregnate her. The second manifestation was ridiculous for me, as Emile literally asked random strangers in the sidewalk if any of them wanted to impregnate a woman, which was Angela. Later on, Angela would eventually give in to Alfred. Alfred was pursuing Angela right from the beginning of the film and he would readily agree to impregnate her. In fact, he even tried to persuade Angela to choose him instead, as they were talking in a restaurant. Because of this, Angela would sleep with Alfred. It puzzled me when Emile found out about it, as he wasn’t furious about it. At first, he showed signs of disappointment but if your partner sleeps with someone else, you would expect a more aggressive reaction. However, this wasn’t the case. In fact, it would then become one of the factors that would encourage Emile to give in to the wishes of Angela. Emile had a change of heart and decided that he wanted to be the father of Angela’s baby. At the end of the movie, he did the deed with her. 

I would say that this is not a typical love story because couples usually say and do things that are sweet to one another or abide by each other’s wishes at least. However in this movie, Angela and Emile are constantly arguing with one another and calling each other insulting names. In fact at night, they would end the night by telling each other how they don’t want to speak to one another. Then, they would wake up and gather books, as the title of these books frame the message that Emile or Angela want to convey to one another, in order to continue their argument. I am quite surprised that they even wanted to stay together. Overall, it was a movie that had humor that revolves around Angela’s desire for a baby.