Expecting to be able to make linguistic sense of a film called "Goodbye to Language" is hilarous in its own right, like the film is in many, subtle ways. But it's also tragic, and romantic, and violent. It is cynical, comedic and, in all respects, a transposition of Beckett to film.

Seeing a high-caliber director take a lo-fi, almost homemade approach to a movie is always interesting. Playing around, making your own 3D cameras, trying different effects in editing, all kinds of things you usually only see young kids doing who are just getting interested in what you can do with a camera. Sometimes this approach can really make everything come together. Sometimes it doesn’t. This time, it didn’t, and it comes off as self-indulgent and pretentious, to use two overused words. The movie isn’t incomprehensible, just vague. This is almost like a personal movie, in that it seems like it was made without an audience in mind, an exercise. It has every French New Wave cliche in the book (jump cuts, wandering dialogue, cinema-verite cinematography), and plays like a film student’s attempt to utilize the techniques he noticed in Breathless with only a surface-level understanding of them. Nothing here is new, and everything has been done better elsewhere. I see a lot of critics referring to the “tactile” effect of the 3D cinematography. This is not a result of the director’s talent. The point of 3D is to make a film feel tactile. Good 3D makes you want to reach out and touch what’s on the screen. The achievement is not so much a n artistic but a technical one. Also, this “tactile” effect is totally lost in the 2D version, eliminating one of the key draws to a large portion of the audience. In short, this is a trifle in Godard’s filmography, and not one that is worth the price of admission.

If you aren't familiar with Godard then this will probably not be your cup of tea, but if you're someone who's seen most of his films this is absolutely can't miss. One of his greatest ever! Hard to believe he's not with us anymore.

Perhaps the very best of Godard's video work of the last 20 years, this is as good as anything in his cannon.

Incomprehensible. I declare the Emperor naked. Gets a star for the dog.

this is the worst goddamn movie and anyone who likes it is full of shit

Poetic artist crazy genius. I have no idea what it is and i fuckin love it that way

Todos aquellos que extrañen la experimentación formal en el cine (visual, sonora y semiológica) se deleitarán con "Adiós al lenguaje", una película acerca de un perro (el perro de Godard), una pareja desnuda y una serie de citas, comentarios y reflexiones sobre el colonialismo, la comunicación y la vida presente. El público no habituado al cine experimental (la mayoría, tristemente) y que nunca acuden al cine para retar su inteligencia, para desprenderse de lo narrativo y lo representativo, que buscan en las películas respuestas y no preguntas y que tienen un hambre insaciable de mero entretenimiento descerebrado, se desesperarán y correrán despavoridos buscando la salida. Quedan advertidos. P.d. ¿Les mencioné que es una película en 3D? ¡Ese Godard y su humor negro!

Todos aquellos que extrañen la experimentación formal en el cine (visual, sonora y semiológica) se deleitarán con "Adiós al lenguaje", una película acerca de un perro (el perro de Godard), una pareja desnuda y una serie de citas, comentarios y reflexiones sobre el colonialismo, la comunicación y la vida presente. El público no habituado al cine experimental (la mayoría, tristemente) y que nunca acuden al cine para retar su inteligencia, para desprenderse de lo narrativo y lo representativo, que buscan en las películas respuestas y no preguntas y que tienen un hambre insaciable de mero entretenimiento descerebrado, se desesperarán y correrán despavoridos buscando la salida. Quedan advertidos. P.d. ¿Les mencioné que es una película en 3D? ¡Ese Godard y su humor negro!

Película no apta para todo el público. Pueden llegarse a aburrir.

Incoherent, meaningless and overrated. Godard did a good job by putting his name in this shame.

"Goodbye to Language", the new film by legendary french filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard is as incomprehensible as a film can get. It's a challenging film for sure, and that's why it's so great.

Jean-Luc Godard, a known name but a guy I have not gotten into just yet. This is originally a 3D-film. An experimental one. I saw the 2D version, but it was very experimental anyways. I liked a few parts where moving images where mixed on screen, but that's about it. Flashy colors, weird editing, a boring crypted story, sound and cuts and voiceovers where all over the place. Is it a way to show his hate to 3D-flicks? I may never know. I did not like it. Well, I did not pay much attention to it. I gave up after 10 minutes, but the film forced me to loose interest. It's a mess and a mash-up of styles and media. 70 minutes felt way too long, that's almost impressive. Some cute tricks does not save it either. Not entertaining, not impressive, not any good at most levels. Impossible to understand still fascinating with an interesting idea and all, but it never caught me. 3 out of 10 lady farts.

Ainda estou desnorteada aqui!

Godard's experimental sensory overload is quite frankly boring and has nothing to say; serving no real purpose other than for the film maker to play around with 3D and shower us with painful pretences. It is quite visually sumptuous, which perhaps makes it worth something.

At 83, directorial genius Godard has created another breakthrough masterpiece. The abrupt jumps in sound volume, stop-start cinematography and rapidly changing imagery may be disturbing at times but they are always provocative. This is a true independent film of the kind a conventional studio could not make and a viewer accustomed to the quotidian could not watch. It is a completely memorable and even life-changing experience for those willing to climb on board for the ride.

There is nobody on Earth who can definitively lay out an explanation of what "Goodbye to Language 3D" is. In many ways, it appears to be Godard's attempt to create a physical manifestation of the 21st century, a schizophrenic Frankenstein's monster stitched together from various bits of nostalgia, naturalism, and supreme self-reflexivity. It's a stream of consciousness produced by the internet age, a farewell to outdated modes of communication and a welcoming of new forms of visual poetry. Or, it's none of these things. It might even be a masterpiece. Who knows? The fact that it's capable of producing the level of debate it has and stimulates the viewer in a way never attempted before makes it great, and perhaps when we've finally wrapped our heads around Godard's new form of expression we'll be able to confidently dissect it. Attempting to tear it down does no one any favors.

Trotz der für mich größtenteils unleserlichen Untertitel (Weiß auf Weiß) war keine Sekunde langweilig oder unnötig. Das 3D läuft Amok (die Chamäleon-Perspektive lässt einem das Hirn schmelzen, exzessive Tiefe sorgt für wundervolle Bilder) und auch sonst wirbelt und zwirbelt der Film aufregend über die Leinwand.

Sigh. Sigh. At this point, over 50 years into his singular career, Jean-Luc Godard remains absolutely and defiantly himself. If nothing else, he's at least absolute proof that the auteur theory of filmmaking, which ascribes the meaning of a film primarily to its director, is sometimes correct. Nobody other than Godard could or would have made this movie. On the other hand, at this point, I honestly wonder if he's not just jerking us around and seeing what he can get away with before critics will call him on his sometimes pretentious nonsense. This movie, to the extent that it can be compared to anything, plays like a looser, digital-video sequel to 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her, Godard's 1967 essay-film on then-contemporary urban alienation and consumerism. That film, however, actually seems much more cohesive than this one. There's no real attempt at anything like a central idea or theme here, let alone a story. There are two characters who do seem to recur throughout much of the movie, but we mostly only see them from the waist down (and they're naked most of the time). There's also a dog that we spend a lot of time looking at. And some trees and water. At times, I did actually feel in sync with what Godard was doing. For example, the fuzzy, discolored digital footage of trees and so on seemed like a smart reflection on the distance between things as they are and our perceptions of them in a fragmented, media-driven world. By shooting deliberately poor-quality video of nature, Godard heightens our awareness that what we are seeing is an image, and that we have no access to the real thing. I get that, and appreciate it. Too much of the rest of the film, though, especially such things as a long discussion of "Hitler's second victory" over the contemporary world and a character repeatedly asking, "Is it possible to form a concept about Africa?" seem like hoary post-structuralist ramblings that should have been left on the cutting-room floor in the 1970s at best, or just utter nonsense at worst. Also, I watched the film in 2-D, but it was originally released in theaters in 3-D; I can only imagine what a nightmare it would be to watch this movie in 3-D. I think I would have thrown up. Godard will never sell out, and he will never be anything other than himself. As long as he lives, he will be experimenting and trying new things and trying to talk about the things that concern him. That's all very good. But that doesn't mean we have to pretend that every single experiment he makes is actually a success, or that the whole "turning off the music suddenly" trick he has been pulling since the 1960s is still novel or interesting. Some of what he does here works, but if we're being honest, a great deal of it doesn't.