Alphaville” is a science fiction movie made in 1965, filmed in black-and-white. From that one description, you’d expect tin-hat robots and aliens that look like people, but with weird ears.
“Alphaville” though depicts a future which is almost indistinguishable from real life in the 60s. Men wear suits, women wear dresses, people get around in cars. Despite the seemingly normal circumstances, it’s one of the most unsettling cinema interpretations of what the future might hold, and it’s utterly captivating.
It was directed by Jean-Luc Godard, which should explain the oddness behind the film. The real name of the movie is “Alphaville, une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution”, and it stars Eddie Constantine as a spy who comes to a city named Alphaville with an agenda.
Alphaville is like a normal French city except that it’s run by a nearly-omnipotent machine intelligence called Alpha 60. We learn that the machine was created to improve the efficiency of life in the city, but that as it has grown in sentience and power, it has managed to outlaw free thought and irrational emotions.
Punishment is death exacted in an extraordinary manner. Watch it for yourself.
Godard paints us a bleak picture of the future, warning us against the blind trust of machinery. What would “Alphaville” look like today, if he made it fresh from the start? We’re incredibly reliant on technology, but I don’t believe we’ve lost our art or our emotions.
Nevertheless, Godard’s bleak cityscape is wonderful to watch the inhabitants pop pills like their eating cereal from a box, women seem to only serve the function of sex objects, and no one seems to remember the meaning of the word ‘love’.
Through the decrees of Alpha 60, we see how bizarre, paradoxically, Alphaville actually is. Alpha 60 seeks to eliminate irrational behaviour, but the resulting society is so inorganic and forced that the inhabitants of Alphaville are like a sick vaudeville show.
Though it’s glaringly lacking in technology and special effects, “Alphaville” demonstrates Godard’s expertise at creating mood through precise filmmaking. Dark streets contrast with unnatural indoor lighting, giving us the feeling that this city does indeed exist on the fringe of the galaxy.
Just as easily, though, we could be on the fringe, as the movie suggests. “Alphaville” is a unique experience, one that might test your patience, especially if you’ve grown up on a steady diet of hyperdrive and blaster fire, but it’s a pleasing, cerebral experience.
I say: If you don’t mind black-and-white, reading subtitles, and odd shots of Einstein’s equations, this is a fantastic science fiction movie.
See it for: Anna Karina. I can understand Godard’s obsession with her.
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