Or more commonly known as French New Wave film 'À bout de souffle', or 'Breathless'.
It's sound advice, it turns out: this film was totally different from anything I'd seen before, and was apparently pretty revolutionary at it's time.
It's hard to see what's so special about this film, particularly as the long takes and bad continuity just make it look like it's been lazily edited at first. But my teacher explained this: the French New Wave was a protest directed towards studio-based, stereotypical American Hollywood at the time. The techniques start to make a little more sense.
The protagonist is Michel Poiccard, a wonderfully French name, played by apparent Mick Jagger lookalike Jean-Paul Belmondo. And considering he starts the film with 'After all, I'm an asshole', he's actually quite a lovable character. When Michel is shot by a policeman in the final scene, you can't help but feel sorry: yes, he's done terrible things, but only because he was in love and, apparently, didn't know how to react to this.
Jean Seberg, our teacher told us, committed suicide around the Arc de Triumph; where a lot of this film was filmed. This is just a guess, but her character Patricia probably demonstrates a kind of typical 60's liberal woman - she stands up to Michel, isn't afraid to rebel against him which, unfortunately, ultimately causes his death.
The story is a bit wishy-washy (technical term) but as I say, this is the first French New Wave film I've watched, and wishy-washy plot lines may be part of the requirements. And as a fan of thrillers, there were enough murders, robberies and scandals to keep me happy.
But I'm rambling. In short: yes - I enjoyed it, yes - I would recommend it, and yes - I would like to see more like it. It's easy to see this kind of film's influence in modern films, and that makes it an essential part of my interests.
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