This film bears an unmistakable resemblance to Orson Welles' "Le Proces," which was made just three years earlier: elegant black and white photography, the use of real Paris locations, a plot that combines absurdist humor with social commentary, and a performance by Orson's old pal Akim Tamiroff. Eddie Constantine plays Lemme Caution as a cross between Mike Hammer and James Bond, with a dash of Sergeant Joe Friday; with his pockmarked face, gravelly voice, trench coat and fedora, Constantine evokes the mystique of Humphrey Bogart, one of Godard's idols, while the exquisite Anna Karina, with her velvet voice, shares with Dominique Sanda the ability to convey complex emotions with minimal facial expression. Like much sci-fi, "Alphaville" parodoxically conveys an anti-technology message, which in the long run is self-defeating but makes for great entertainment, especially for those of us less than enamored of the Information Revolution. The plot bears marked similarities to "1984" and "Brave New World" as well as stories by Philip K. Dick, Robert Heinlein, and Isaac Asimov. "Alphaville" has a strongly anti-communist, almost libertarian message, which is ironic in view of Godard's later commitment to Maoism. The film's logical gaps are perhaps fitting in view of its protest against the tyranny of mathematical logic, which hearkens back to Dostoevsky's "Notes From Underground." Godard shot the entire film in real Paris locations, mostly at night, giving them a spooky, futuristic look. Alpha-60, the supercomputer who rules Alphaville, is a clear forerunner of HAL 9000 in "2001: A Space Odyssey." This is a movie that both entertains and makes us think, defending the primacy of human emotions and values in a world increasingly dominated by machines.
Review of Alphaville
