Basically you have a bunch of bricks. They are beautiful, finely crafted, sturdy bricks. Each brick on its own would be considered a work of art. So you stack these bricks up hoping to build a house, but you neglect to use any mortar to hold these bricks together. Finally you have built a house. Except that you haven’t. You’ve made a phony house and haven’t really put anything together. The “house” then falls down once the wind blows or you touch it, do to your outright refusal to actually make a genuine house. Bam. Band of Outsiders in a nut shell.
The shots in Jean-Luc Godard’s Band of Outsiders are all great on their own. But they don’t add up. There is no connectivity between them, nothing holding them together. Every single shot in the trailer looks exciting and fun, and the trailer does a wonderful job of getting you excited for the movie if only so that you will ultimately be let down when you finally see it. The whole of the film is quite distinctly less than the sum of its parts. The race through the Louvre, the Madison Dance, the “minute” of silence; all these “legendary” scenes hold up so well on their own, but this movie just kills them when they’re added together. They mean absolutely nothing.
It is actually quite interesting that the trailer wouldn’t present an accurate representation of the movie, because the movie is nothing but false. It is pretentious and mean spirited. These aren’t real characters. There is nothing interesting about them. They are empty and if that is the point, then why would you expect me to enjoy myself watching these characters bumble around Paris for an hour and half talking about a robbery? The film is just simply made up of what are usually long takes with the camera pivoting around but never going anywhere, much like the characters. Every shot is composed just fine, yet they never lead to or mean anything. Oh I guess that’s the point. You got me, Godard.
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