Film review: ‘NOUVELLE VAGUE’ by Nick Gardener from ‘Built For Speed’
French auteur Jean Luc Godard’s films are not for all tastes. His approach and subjects vary wildly, some of his movies are undoubtedly revolutionary, some feel like intriguing yet pretentious film school experiments while political works like Sympathy For The Devil, which features the Rolling Stones, contains some insufferable polemic hectoring. Godard no doubt enjoyed infuriating some viewers but no one could deny that, in more than 60 years of making films, he dramatically expanded the frontiers of cinema. Richard Linklater’s wonderfully intoxicating and insightful Nouvelle Vague (the label given to the new wave of French cinema in the late 1950’s) dramatises the making of Godard’s first feature film, A Bout de Souffle or Breathless.
By 1959, Godard was an established film critic with Cashiers du cinema (Cinema Papers). The magazine seemed to be the epicentre of a tumultuous new movement in film thought that inspired what became known and the French New Wave. Like many of his colleagues such as Francois Truffaut and Eric Rohmer, Godard longed to become a director and set about making his debut feature Breathless a furiously experimental homage to American gangster and outlaw films based on a story by Truffaut and starring Jean Seberg and Jean-Paul Belmondo.
In Nouvelle Vague Godard (Guillaume Marbeck), is depicted as determined to throw out the cinema rule book. He conjures the film Breathless through off the cuff, guerrilla movie making techniques that include filming on the streets amid a crowd of onlookers. His process is mercurial and inspired but often infuriating in its mix of wild improvisation and verbose, pretentious philosophising about the existential role of cinema. With an unorthodox shooting schedule that sees Godard suddenly end the day’s production on a whim and a script hastily cobbled together during breakfast, Godard has the cast especially Jean Seberg (Zoey Deutch), the crew and the producers wondering if they have signed onto to a disaster.
Linklater superbly captures the febrile atmosphere of chaos and creativity during the filming of Breathless as well as the iconic cool of 1950s Paris. Linklater has filmed Nouvelle Vague in a style similar to Breathless with grainy black and white cinematography, hand-held camera movements, everyday locations on the streets of Paris and natural lighting. The film provides wonderful insights into the way Godard set up iconic shots and coaxed reactions from his stars Seberg and Jean-Paul Belmondo (Aubry Dullin).
The entire cast are terrific here and it often feels like we’re watching Godard, Seberg and Belmondo in a documentary rather than actors playing them. Marbeck carefully navigates the fine line between making Godard a fascinating and potent enigma rather than a parody of a loopy artist. Deutch wonderfully conveys Seberg’s mix of bemusement and fury at Godard’s unusual and often chaotic methods while Dullin amusingly portrays Jean-Paul Belmondo as gleefully going along for the ride.
Additionally, as a treat for cinephiles, the film shows Godard hobnobbing with his greatest mentors including Truffaut (Adrien Rouyard), Jean Pierre Melville (Tom Novembre), Roberto Rossellini (Laurent Mothe) and Robert Bresson (Aurélien Lorgnier).
Novelle Vague provides an intoxicating snapshot of a fascinating revolutionary period in cinema that, not unlike the punk movement in rock, reshaped the cultural landscape. For anyone fascinated by cinema history, this wonderfully perceptive, detailed and often funny film is essential viewing.
Nick’s rating: ****
Genre: Drama/ Comedy/ Biopic.
Classification: M.
Director(s): Richard Linklater.
Release date: 8th Jan 2026.
Running time: 106 mins.
Reviewer: Nick Gardener can be heard on “Built For Speed” every Friday night from 8-10pm on 88.3 Southern FM.