Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de) "Charlotte et son Jules" is a 13-minute black-and-white film from 55 years ago. The writer and director is Jean-Luc Godard and the 2 actors are Jean Paul Belmondo and Anne Collette. For all 3 of them, it was not the first career effort, but a very early one. Godard and Belmondo obviously went on to become huge stars in their respective fields. Collette did not develop equally prolific or successful in terms of her career. In this short film a woman has left a man, returns to his place and the man keeps rambling mostly misogynistic phrases for the entire film right until the end where we find out in a funny little twist why she really came back. Pay attention to how Charlotte is mentioned first in the title. She is the star, even if she only communicates non-verbally in here. All in all, despite the random ramblings there is something artistic to this film and it was a good watch. Recommended.

MisterWhiplash Jean-Luc Godard must have known he would come back to Charlotte and Her Jules very soon after making it, since he recreated in Breathless, made at or around the same time as this last short he made before going head-on into features, a nearly 20 minute version of this scene only with a little more of an equal playing field. Meaning in this case it's all about the man, or rather "her" man, and in a small-term experimental sense it's quite successful. It's basically just a monologue Jean Paul Belmondo delivers to his girl following her return from being with "another" man, who apparently is waiting in his car on the street below. The monologue is so ranty Charlotte (who as a clever and sneaky and telling trick by Godard gets top billing) only gets in two lines, one of them her exit, "I just came for my toothbrush", with all smiles going on, trying on a hat, occasionally whistling, while her man goes on and on.It was one of Godard's so often quoted idioms that it became cliché and then went back around to original and then in a circle forever and ever that "the history of cinema is men photographing women." It is in this case that Godard practices this full-tilt; while Belmondo (with Godard dubbing) gets all of the audio time, pontificating, complaining, praising, sarcastically reminiscing about the good times and bad times and harping both poetic and the self-conscious about himself and her, the camera is almost always on the pretty Anne Collette. Godard would return to usually keeping his camera on his "lady" be she Anna Karina, Bridgit Bardot or Anne Wiezemsky, but for right now it's perhaps best to consider this a practice run. Thankfully it's an extremely entertaining and curiously rigorous practice run, showcasing the attention to the opposite sexes plus flexing such muscles as breezy and quick cuts and the freedom and rough edges of a hand-held black and white camera.Ah, those were the days, before say the 1980s and 1990s came around.

Michael_Elliott Charlotte et son Jules (1960) *** (out of 4) Short film from Jean-Luc Godard about a man who is visited by his ex-lover. While he tries to belittle her, she just sits there quietly mocking him. I've only seen two other films from Godard but you can certainly tell that this early film is his. Several of his "techniques" that would show up in Breathless are here. The dialogue is sharp, fast and funny making for a pretty neat little film with a terrific ending.Une histoire d'eau (1961) ** (out of 4) Short film by Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut. A woman travels through a flooded France when she meets a man who begins to tease her. The entire running time is basically just talk, talk and more talk and none of it is very interesting. My movie books and the IMDb credits Godard as co-director but he's not listed in the credits and nothing in the film looks like his style.

Afracious This entertaining short features a man who is visited by his ex-lover. The moment she arrives, the man starts his constant barrage of speech; the woman doesn't say much. She just mocks the man and pretends she isn't listening. She pulls faces at him and larks about; while the man is trying his best to get her back in his life, then in the next sentence he says he hates her. A playful selection of dialogue that ends with a thud.