Tout Va Bien

Everything's all right -- or is it? In 1972, four years after the mayhem of May '68, Jean-Luc Godard examines the political motivations of the day. It's one of his angrier and most blatantly revolutionary films, but it's still so boldly humorous in Godardian sort of way. Jane Fonda is an American journalist in Paris married Yves Montand who was an important filmmaker that has sold out into making commercials. The two of them get caught up in a strike at sausage factory where the workers have trapped inside the company leaders as well as Fonda and Montand. There's a wonderfully funny bit where the workers won't allow the boss to use the bathroom (because they only get five minute bathroom breaks, but it takes that long just to get to the bathrooms), so at the point of desperation, he runs into his office, throws something through the window and begins to urinate out the window. If there has ever been a filmmaker who has come close to changing the world politically, it was Godard. His filmmaking is as bold and brilliant as ever, but his striking workers (the exploited masses) come across as petty complainers envious of the success of the wealthy capitalists, but then again, that's always been one of the faults of socialism -- mindless class warfare.