Origins of the 21st Century (2000) User Reviews (4)

Simply an incredible film

[pfileri · 10/10 · 7 April 2001]

"The Origin of the 21st Century," Godard's most recent film is one of his most gorgeous, poetic, and passionate works. In less than 20 minutes, he takes us on journey back through the 20th century (intertitles: "1990," "1975," "1960," "1945," "1930," "1900") through a rich collage/montage of footage. With a haunting, minimalist, beautifully simple piano motif in the background, we are shown the various tragedies of the century: buses taking people off to Nazi death camps, scenes of rape and assault, the rise of totalitarian governments, and pornography. Interspersed between these are fleeting glimpses of happiness and beauty: a girl slowly letting out a grin that becomes a smile, a colorful country road, a Hollywood musical dance routine. Godard uses both video and film, color and black and white, and the real world as well as cinema in this astounding work. Throughout it, a man and a woman (and at one point Jean Seberg from Godard's BREATHLESS) narrate in cryptic messages about war and love and happiness and suffering and their connections. Check out footage from Kubrick's THE SHINING also in the film.

One final thing to say, this film is *very* hard to get a chance to see. It only showed at Cannes in 2000 (its premiere) then at the New York Film Festival's avant-garde program and then one other screening in Europe before I got to see it. I was lucky enough to see it at the George Eastman House Motion Picture Museum in Rochester, but because the distributor (Canal +) makes it so hard to obtain the 35mm print(might be copyright problems), we had to see it on projected video. In the end this wasn't much of a problem; it was a very good recording and much of Godard's film was actually edited and composed on video before being transferred to film, so it fit.

Anyways, goes with out saying now: jump at any opportunity you get to see this film.

The Go the go go Godard the dard the go Godard

[Polaris_DiB · 7 October 2010]

The following anecdote is of the type that would probably send quite a few film aficionados holding their palms to their head, but it illustrates a point about the general perception of Godard so many years after Breathless. Probably about six years ago, certainly long before I graduated college and probably before I had even seen another Godard movie other than Breathless, I went online and discovered to my shock that the man is not only still alive, but still making movies. It is sort of silly to assume otherwise, but nevertheless the international perspective on Godard weighs his importance decidedly on his very early work and the stuff that he makes these days go largely ignored by all but the dedicated auteur-theorist and art-house cinema periodicals. Taking De l'origine du XXIe siecle on it's own, I can sort of see why. Godard is still using the form for all its worth, but in a way that, because of his own radical use of that form, is not very radical anymore.

This movie was commissioned by the Cannes Film Festival in 2000, and true to Godard's iconoclastic nature, he delivered by presenting a montage of footage on Nazi and war atrocities mixed up with a veritable "Name the Film" game of assorted footage from Gigi, Ugetsu, The Shining, and even Godard's own Breathless, and more. You get elegant footage of dancing interspersed with a pre-R. Kelly golden shower, dark black and white contrasted with faded color overlaid by celluloid decay, copies of VHS copies, and mixes/plays with sound to boot. And I can't really say it offers a whole lot that hasn't been covered before.

In my opinion, the best and most direct way to understand Godard is that he is a post-structuralist, and in this movie alone you are simply expected to be patient with Gold The Gold The Gold Of Of the Gold The Origins The Gold Of the Century The Origins of The Century of Gold of the 21st Century Origins. Certainly his point is readily accessible, that the 21st century derives from the events of the 20th century, which were informed by some major global developments, amongst them being stuff like, say, fascism, and other things like, say, cinema. Also, true to the word-fragmenting title-sequence, the montage itself is almost frustrated with its inability to juxtapose everything all at once, and opens up the opportunities for not only two sequential cuts to inform each other, but attempts to make each cut inform every other one within the movie. One gets the feeling this was meant to be watched in a loop, also fun considering the theoretically sequential understanding of historical events and also the way dates are presented in reverse order, and unconnected actually to clips that are featured after them (this movie did not get made at that time, nor at the other time either, nor is there a relationship, even though there is, and Godard shows that relationship by putting them together--that is to say).

But on the other hand, Godard can also just be simply understood as a provocateur, and what better way to anger the Cannes board than connecting filmmaking, even his own filmmaking, with fascism and human tragedy (especially since, reports say Godard's major frustration with filmmaking was the lack of coverage of the Holocaust). I do not know how the Cannes board reacted, but honestly I wouldn't be surprised if they loved it. After all, the types of people that invite the likes of Godard enjoy being confronted.

In other words, this movie is somewhat interesting but ultimately not a very profound statement.

--PolarisDiB

powerful, personal history of the 1900's

[rabbitcage · 10/10 · 12 July 2004]

powerful, personal history of the 1900's!!! wow, what a wonderful personal history of the 1900's from one of the master of cinema!!! this video collage documentary is power and heartbreaking in just a mere 16mins. Godard masterfully cuts together war footage from the past with film clips from the past to create a breakthrough experience that only film/video could offer.

this short film was commissioned by the Cannes' to open up the 2000 festival. what a great way to start festival. i was able to find a rare DVD, only one of 500 copies on ebay, worth every penny.

if you are able to find a copy and are an avid godard fan, it is a collectible item just for you!!!

Chef d'oeuvre

[philjeudy · 9/10 · 13 June 2020]

Start watching now. You don't speak French? No need to if you have a piece of brain and heart, it's quite enough.