Numero Deux (DVD)

Jean-Luc Godard (Contempt) brilliantly mixes video and film in his Grenoble studio; he secured the money for the film claiming the project was a remake of Breathless. The action unfolds on two television monitors. The elusive plot essentially concerns a young working-class couple that live in a claustrophobic, high-rise apartment complex and the marital discord set off by the wife’s infidelity. The film, made in collaboration with Anne-Marie Miéville, is dialectic on the relationship of sex and money. “I think it’s something like a masterpiece. Numéro Deux is among the most visually compelling films Godard has ever made. He uses his video monitors to invent a dozen new ways of splitting the screen or layering the image. “Compared to it, every other movie in town is just a cavity on the screen” (J. Hoberman, The Village Voice).