Le Petit Soldat

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Le Petit Soldat
Directed by Jean-Luc Godard
Produced by Georges de Beauregard
Written by Jean-Luc Godard
Starring Michel Subor
Anna Karina
Henri-Jacques Huet
Music by Maurice Leroux
Cinematography Raoul Coutard
Editing by Agnès Guillemot
Lila Herman
Nadine Marquand
Release date(s) Flag of France 1963
Running time 88 min.
Language French
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Le Petit Soldat (The Little Soldier) is a 1960 film, written and directed by French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard. It was Godard's first film with Anna Karina, who starred as Véronica Dreyer alongside Michel Subor (as Bruno Forestier). The film was banned in France until January 1963, because of the presence of torture scenes. This is Godard's second feature film (after A bout de souffle) but was released as his fourth movie. This is the first of Jean-Luc Godard's movies starring Anna Karina, who became his wife soon after the filming. She would go on to become the quintessential Godard actress.

[edit] Summary

During the Algerian War, Bruno Forestrier lives in Geneva to escape the enlistment in France. Working for French intelligence, he is ordered to kill Palivoda, a pro-FLN (National Liberation Front of Algeria) to prove he is not a double agent. Refusal and hesitation keep him from carrying out the assassination. Meanwhile, he meets and falls in love with Véronica Dreyer, who helped the FLN. Bruno plans to leave with her for Brasil, but is captured and tortured by Algerian revolutionaries. He escapes, and agrees to kill Palivoda for the French in exchange for passage to Brasil for him and Veronica. However, the French discover Veronica's ties to the FLN, and torture her to death.

[edit] Themes

The situation in Algeria and the denunciation of the use of torture by both sides are the main themes of the movie. This led to his being banned for three years in France. This movie shows a typical theme of Jean-Luc Godard, developed in his later works: interrogation about the nature of cinema (Bruno Forestier in the movie: "La photographie, c'est la vérité, et le cinéma, c'est ving-quatre fois la vérité par seconde" - "Photography is truth, and cinema is truth 24 times per second") and the image (the photo-shoot of Véronica)

[edit] External links