Les Carabiniers
(The Riflemen)
With Marino Masé, Albert Juross, Catherine Ribeiro.
France /Italy, 1963, 35mm, black & white, 80 min.
French with English subtitles.
Godard’s fifth feature film, Les Carabiniers follows the picaresque journeys of Ulysses and Michelangelo, two peasants who must leave wives and homes to fight for the king in an unspecified time and place. Lured by promises of “all the riches of the world,” the pair travels to exotic locales, whose conquests are documented by series of picture-postcards sent back to their wives. Godard’s fable takes a dark turn when a treaty signed by the king transforms the returning victors into war criminals. Shooting in the grainy black and white of old newsreels, with footage of real wars appended to images of rape, pillage, tourism, and luxe consumer goods, Godard created a powerful (and in its time, controversial) statement against war, imperialism, and capitalist society.
