Bande à part

Gleefully putting into practice D W Griffith’s maxim that all you need to make a film is a girl and a gun, BANDE À PART is Godard’s playful tribute to the Hollywood pulp crime movies of the 1940s, executed with typically Gallic cool. Frantz and Arthur, a couple of streetwise chancers, team up with the shy Odile (a beguiling performance from Anna Karina, Godard’s wife and muse at the time) to plan a robbery. As the trio of misfits roam the cafes of suburban Paris, do a lightning tour of the Louvre, and play-act shootouts, the suspicion grows that this is one heist that is not going to go according to plan. As well as superb photography by Raoul Coutard and music by Michel Legrand, BANDE À PART features one of the most exhilarating dance Sequences in film.