An early piece of New Wave cinema by Goddard in the days before his films became totally incomprehensible, it was inspirational for directors like Bertolucci in its vigour and willingness to challenge conventional attitudes. The film is, in fact, deeply morally ambivalent, with Belmondo as the 'cool' hero with no apparent loyalty or obligation to anyone but himself, but like Antonioni's L'Avventura it seems to usher in a new kind of world, a world of complexity, uncertainty and, in the case of Bout de Souffle, a world dominated by the young. It would not be too far from the truth to see most pop videos of today as direct descendants of this film. Seberg's performance is strangely melancholic, presaging the later tragedies of her own life, and the image of her wandering the streets of Paris as a young girl selling copies of The International Herald Tribune is for some reason the one that I remember most clearly from this film.
Review of Breathless
