Weekend Warriors

Jean Luc Godard is not exactly Steven Spielberg. His films are at times grind­ingly affected and polit­ically nihil­istic. Not exactly a laugh a minute. But as far as darkly hilarious apoca­lypse goes he’s pretty unbeatable. And if you like European car culture of the sixties, he’s pretty spot on, too. This clip, from his 1967 Weekend, is one of longest tracking shots in cinematic history and document’s Godard’s imaginary of the traffic jam from hell in a culture where the whole bourgois world can only find a glimpse of freedom by escaping the city, in their cars, for the weekend. As well as being a fright­en­ingly prescient view of the future (tried to drive through France during a sweltering August lately?), the lens scrolls across some wither­ingly cool cars, a gathering of which would be difficult to recreate. As well as the requisite helping of Renaults, Citroens and Simcas there is an eclectic gathering of NSUs, Morrises and other period exotica. As well as the beautiful royal blue Facel Vega convertible driven by the main protag­onist, there are also a few that even the geekiest of us here at Influx towers could not identify. It’s a fairly long video, but if you’re passionate about your French Classics, then it’s well worth seven minutes of your time. But watch out for those hippy cannibals.