Vonia A Woman Is a Woman (French: Une femme est une femme) (1961) Comedy? Think not. Drama? Too confused to care. Musical? Satire. Romance? She sleeps with best friend. Visual zest, but not much else. Tanka, literally "short poem", is a form of poetry consisting of five lines, unrhymed, with the 5-7-5-7-7 syllable format. #Tanka #PoemReview

gavin6942 A French striptease artist (Anna Karina) is desperate to become a mother. When her reluctant boyfriend (Jean-Claude Brialy) suggests his best friend (Jean-Paul Belmondo) to impregnate her, feelings become complicated when she accepts.Godard declared this triangle "an excellent subject for a comedy à la Lubitsch" and, in fact, the Belmondo character is named Alfred Lubitsch, which is no subtle tip of the hat. This is Lubitsch with an eccentric French touch.Only the third of Godard's films (he made many, many more), it is not really my favorite by a long shot. It has some of the quirkiness of his other films (especially early on when the music seems to be completely unaware of the movie). But it just never really hits home for me.

Blake Peterson If Cyd Charisse, Bob Fosse, and Gene Kelly don't mean anything to you, then A Woman Is a Woman probably won't either. But if they do, then the film will be a hell of a lot less meager, having some spice amidst all the pop art sugar. In 1961, Godard was a hot shot director, riding off the massive success of '60's Breathless, which remains to be his finest hour. Unavoidably, A Woman Is a Woman is minor, showing the director paying homage to the Hollywood musical with varied success.Godard's muse/wife Anna Karina portrays Angela, a young and overtly naïve stripper who longs to have a baby. Her boyfriend, Emile (Jean-Claude Brialy), refuses to commit to the decision. Desperate, Angela turns her attention towards Emile's best friend, Alfred (Jean-Paul Belmondo).A Woman Is a Woman pays one homage after the other, and in return, the film is more of a love letter than an actual film. Whenever Emile turns Angela's advances down, she responds with a babyish that's-not-fair! frown that mirrors the ingenue sensibilities of Debbie Reynolds or Sandra Dee. Angela works at a strip club that has all the exoticness of the one Barbara Stanwyck danced for in Ball of Fire (meaning there is zero exoticness to be found). Emile is the sensible Fred Astaire type and Alfred is his charming Van Johnson counterpart. But the characters never feel quite original; they're nearly echoes of the people Godard is trying to emulate.I find myself having the exact same problems in the majority of Godard's films. They bewitch you with their style, crowding the landscape with snappy American style advertisements, chic actors, and an eye for color that can range from the ice cold pizazz of a film noir to the gaudiness of a Technicolor musical. Yet it's as if Godard puts the story in his mouth and shreds it with his teeth; even if it's straightforward, it's detached, almost blasé. His films are so concentrated on flipping a genre movie onto its head that they seem to forget to be even somewhat compelling.But A Woman Is a Woman isn't without its charms. Godard's manipulation of sound swings the supposed score around and smashes it into a wall; the few musical sequences are inspired in their delivery. Karina, always a pleasure to watch, is simply lovely; Belmondo is lightly smug and ready to please as Brialy's foil.Nevertheless, A Woman Is a Woman is more self-serving than it is accessible. It is one of Godard's most elegantly shot films, but it lacks the heart of Breathless or Bande á part. Read more reviews at petersonreviews.com

random_avenger After his acclaimed and highly influential debut feature Breathless (1960), the Nouvelle Vague director Jean-Luc Godard went on to make a couple of short films and The Little Soldier, his first collaboration with the Danish actress and his future wife Anna Karina. However, the latter film was initially banned in France and was not released until 1963, thus making the 1961 musical comedy A Woman Is a Woman Godard's second published feature effort. The film's release history aside, is it any good when seen in 2010?The core plot deals with a beautiful striptease dancer named Angela (Anna Karina) who lives with her boyfriend Émile (Jean-Claude Brialy) in a top floor flat in Paris. Her biggest dream is to have a baby but he is reluctant and keeps avoiding the subject, often leading to arguing and bickering. Eventually an idea is brought up: perhaps Émile's friend Alfred (Jean-Paul Belmondo) could help in the matter...I have heard some criticisms for Une Femme and was not thoroughly impressed by it either when I first saw it but after a rewatch it started feeling better like often happens to me. Typical for French New Wave, Godard does not allow his vision to be bound by the conventions of cinematic storytelling but instead freely utilizes various styles of presenting his ideas: music beginning and pausing abruptly in mid-scene, mixed-up text appearing on screen to describe the characters' emotions, almost absurd brief flashes of people dancing on a street, strangely changing coloured lights in a bathroom, talking directly to the camera...All this can (and does to a certain extent) feel like alienating and artificial trickery for the sake of weirdness but when viewed in the right mood it can also look very entertaining. It helps to know how the film is known as Godard's tribute to American musicals: from this perspective the exaggeratedly dramatic and often knowingly unfitting bursts of music, the wide camera movements and sudden flashes of dancing gain a context and do not seem so abrasive anymore. In the middle of experimenting, the basic plot always remains at hand, examining universal themes of mismatching expectations in a relationship and the general nature of men and women – with a twist, naturally. Even so, one can simply just enjoy the visuals, colours and music without pondering them too much since the film is clearly meant to be (and is) entertaining as well.The famous book title quarrel scene and the language jokes are pretty amusing but the most essential asset of Une Femme is the persona of Anna Karina in the titular role. Her girly and innocent charm ensures it is now difficult to think of anyone else playing the role, although Brialy and Belmondo are alright too. To wrap up, I understand many feel that one performance cannot save a film if everything else is annoying. Une Femme definitely has a risk of coming across that way and may raise a question about why the director made the movie the way he did. I am far from an expert on Godard's influences and intentions but judging simply from the joyous vibe the film sends, the answer may well be no more complex than "why not?"