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In one of his greatest films, Jean-Luc Godard uses the slim story of a young wife and mother who works afternoons as a prostitute as a springboard for a dazzling cinematic essay on materialism, contemporary alienation and the changing face of Paris.
Archival print!
Considered by many (including us) to be Godard's masterpiece, 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her was based on a newspaper report about suburban housewives turning to prostitution to pay for their latest consumer goods. Punctuated by looming Scope close-ups of soap boxes and everyday items — the "cosmos in a coffee cup" sequence is legendary — Godard's vision of a world in which "dead objects are always alive and live people are already dead" focuses on the daily routine of a housewife-cum-prostitute (Marina Vlady) who moves between husband, pimp and john, kitchen, café and whorehouse with studied indifference. The "her" of the title is also Paris, which was undergoing traumatic "urban renewal" at the time. "One of the ten best films in the history of cinema" (J. Hoberman, The Village Voice); "May very well be Godard's most consummate film" (James Monaco).