Passion

Jean-Luc, Godard, 1982
very difficult to describe unified formal system
yes, there's use of deep focus, some beautifully symetric framings, but always the opposite
curling camera-strokes around the lit-up tableaus are spectacular, really a punch of the 'real' in these shadowless worlds
Godard also frequently returns to much backlighting and a sillouhetted foreground figure
use of close-ups, sometimes moving, for long periods
yet mix that in with the classic Godard long-shot, farcical and atmospheric, strangely capturing a kind of 'beauty', always
and the discontinous sound and image; flags up 'falsity' of gaze, but also a kind of truth in an narration that one can't really say...
plot and study-wise, we have the comparison's of the worker and the director, the relation to actual emancipatory movements, a kind of study of work
some moments of course work better than others, there's a bit of dead time here (and not just, one suspects, in a deliberate sense)
neither Godard's finest or his worst; but at least enters a dialogue with his '60's stuff