Opinion 1: The Nouvelle Vague decidedly revolutionized the French cinema and perhaps the world art ;Jean -Daniel Pollet's opus was so ahead of its time it was not theatrically released and people thought for a long time it was forever lost ;fortunately it's now available and it's a major work for anyone interested in the French cinema ; Truffaut had his alter ego Jean-Pierre Léaud (Antoine Doinel) ,Pollet had his ,his sad clown Claude Melki,who would appear in later films such as "L'Amour C'est Gai L'Amour C'est Triste ",a very successful attempt at blending the old populist cinema with the avant- garde ways of the N.W.
The beginning,which actually mesmerizes the viewer ,predates "L"Année Dernière A Marienbad" by one year: flouting chronology and challenging the audience's reason;voice over galore ,repeating the same sentences till you go into a trance: a mysterious castle where the director switches abruptly from snow falling in Winter to a road in Summer with the hero and his pal singing and playing the guitar, a bus in the night with static shots of Edith Scob's face .
The viewer loses himself in conjectures about the meaning of the story;it may be (but you can interpret it differently ,according to your own sensitivity)the search of a long gone childhood ,epitomized by the sad clown ,and an infinite nostalgia which emanates from the old castle ,where shady persons move (epitomizing the evil adult world)and play billiards ;this story of traffickers does not matter at all and takes a back seat to the hero's endless' roaming in Search of Lost Time.
Opinion 2: the Nouvelle Vague is arguably the worst thing that happened to the French cinema;a bunch of would be artists who used to despise most of their elders ;most of their "inventions" had already been used before them,but because the years before their coming are generally ignored (or not well known) ,they passed for revolutionaries.
"La Ligne De Mire " was not a major loss,by a long shot.It's the N.V. in all its horror ;some call it artistic,the others arty.This is an inept jumble ,with a tendency to make the viewer feel he has watched a "deep" ,"important' " meaningful" "ambitious " work.And if it makes the others take to their heels ,or fall asleep halfway through ,it's because they are dunces who cannot appreciate the brave challenging cinema .
As for the hypnotic side,it did work in Resnais 's "L'Année Dernière A Marienbad' because this director transcended the N.W.'s concepts ;here it's simply dull and boring .And if you want to see talented Edith Scob in a worthwhile movie,you'd better take "Les Yeux Sans Visage" .As far as Claude Melki is concerned ,he is about as expressive as Truffaut's Léaud.
