Scene from Jean-Luc Godard’s “La Chinoise” (1967)
Based loosely on Dostoevsky’s The Possessed, Godard’s La Chinoise follows five students as they passionately explore the ins and outs of Marxist-Leninist doctrine through debate, theatre, painting and song. The climax of the film comes when the group decides to assassinate the Soviet Minister of Culture on his visit to Paris. Nineteen-year-old Véronique — one of the most dedicated revolutionaries within the group — agrees to carry out the assassination, but ends up killing the wrong man. The emotionally unstable Kirilov, having penned a written confession to the crime, commits suicide.
There is no cathartic moment, and certainly no happy ending. We are left without any indication of what happens to the students, no sign of what political impact, if any, their revolutionary violence has beyond the botched assassination attempt and suicide.
In terms of style, the film is fast-paced, colourful, loud and chaotic, brilliantly capturing the youthful enthusiasm and turbulence of the 1960s New Left student movement. Almost all of the film in shot in one location — a friend’s apartment where the students are residing over their summer vacation. The atmosphere in the apartment is tense and emotional. And it’s not difficult to see why La Chinoise is often regarded as a critique of the New Left student movement.
Throughout the film, the students are petty, immature and naïve. They are often portrayed as fanatics, religiously reciting the mantras of Mao’s Little Red Book. None of the students are from working class backgrounds. And Godard seems eager to expose what he regards as some of the hypocrisy of the Maoist strand of the New Left. In focusing on the problems of the Third World, especially US intervention in Vietnam, Godard gives the impression that privileged Western Maoists are trying to absolve themselves of any engagement with working class politics at home.
At the same time, the film portrays the student movement with a certain romanticism. Attractive young people lounge around, drink wine and discuss important political and philosophical issues. The therefore film manages to uphold a certain ideal of student life in postwar France.
La Chinoise highlights just how much the world has changed politically since the 1960s. It’s remarkable to think just how much radical content has been drained from the student movement over the past half century. The film was also incredibly prescient. La Chinoise was released in 1967, a year before the student protests that swept France. Godard evidently had his finger on the political pulse and sensed something significant in the bubbling discontent of his era.
There are plenty of good political films, but how many can claim to be as prophetic as La Chinoise?