By Billy Newbery
Films about films are usually boring, self-congratulatory, and honestly, the few rare expectations are terrible, but here we are delivered pure magic. A film that feels like you are watching an honest-to-god documentary made by Richard Linklater, who was there himself. Actually, succeeding in that so often chased after aesthetic of a film that could have been shot back in the day but was put in a vault, lost, until now.
Nouvelle Vague does three wonderful things. First, it is a picture of the time, a document of that famous and revolutionary era in cinema, the birth of the French New Wave. Second, it is a film about the processes of artists and what it takes to be in the often difficult film industry. Balancing the reality of commerce and the act of creating honest art. Lastly and most importantly to me, it is a hangout film just like the greatest of Linklater’s filmography. Here we get to hang out with the characters on set, and we are just simply allowed to be with them during this unique shoot. Getting to know them all as if you’re a part of the crew.
All these elements are measured so well and so evenly that we are given a film of real brilliance. Walking in, as someone who hates Godard and doesn’t like Breathless very much, I thought I would roll my eyes as I walked out. Instead, as I left the cinema, I found that this film gave me that greatest and rarest of feelings that films can give you. A sense of being excited to live, a wanting to seize the day and meet as many people as possible. I came to watch a film about the French New wave but instead I was welcomed with a movie about people who are passionate, who are difficult, who are kind, who are just trying to do something with their lives. This is the kind of film that can calmly get into your heart and soul without realising it has worked its magic. All you have to do is sit back and simply exist with these people in their moment.