A Woman Is a Woman

With Une femme est une femme, Jean-Luc Godard, the iconic figurehead of the 60s Nouvelle Vague movement, presented his idiosyncratic vision of the musical: “a neorealist musical.” Met Franse superstars Anna Karina, Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean-Claude Brialy at the height of their popularity, this unique classic is simultaneously a playful homage to and an ironic dissection of the American musical. Karina’s Angéla, a striptease dancer with a desire for a child, gets entangled in a lighthearted but sharply observed love triangle. With its exuberant colors, humor, and beautiful music by composer Michel Legrand, the film shows Godard at his most accessible, without losing his formal playfulness.