Toward the end of “Keep Your Right Up,” a 1987 film by Jean-Luc Godard that is just now reaching our shores, a sad-sack character named The Idiot (played by Godard) is lying face down on an airport tarmac clutching a pile of film cans. When they are ripped out of his hands by a well-dressed woman, The Idiot warns her that “the toughest thing in movies is carrying the cans” — just one of many pithy observations to be found in this flawed but intriguing tale about the struggle of artists in a philistine world.
And in what other kind of world would a film by Godard, one of the most revolutionary filmmakers of the past 40 years, have to wait 15 years to be viewed by American audiences?
The tale revolves around the aforementioned Idiot (Godard as Monsieur Hulot, with a touch of Jerry Lewis), who has been given 24 hours to get his new movie, titled “A Place on the Earth,” to Paris if he hopes to guarantee financing. Once that premise is established, Godard takes off on a series of cinematic side trips that serve to bolster, reinforce and, of course, confuse the matter at hand.
As usual in a Godard film, it helps to have a strong literary background. Not only do we hear quotes from Dostoyevsky (just in case “The Idiot” allusion isn’t clear), but bits and pieces from Goethe and Malraux also find their way into the story. Many of the characters are symbolic, with names such as “The Man,” “The Individual” and “The Average Frenchman.”
They turn up in the strangest places doing the strangest things. At one point, they are waiting to be ticketed at Terminus Airlines, where they ask the impatient flight manager questions about God and mortality. Later, they are in a pile of bodies behind the barbed wire fence of a POW camp.
Every now and again, as a veiled musical interlude, Godard transports us to a recording studio, where a techno-band struggles to create a specific sound that will eventually leak into the rest of the movie.
There’s also a short sequence, featuring the actress Jane Birkin, where Godard re-creates the story of the grasshopper and the ant.
“Keep Your Right Up” fits stylistically into the series of other films that Godard made in the 1980s, including “First Name: Carmen,” “Hail Mary,” “Detective” and “King Lear.” Though it’s the weakest of that bunch, it certainly keeps us honest and on our toes, which has always been one of Godard’s key missions as an artist.
`KEEP YOUR RIGHT UP’
(star)(star)(star)
Written, directed and edited by Jean-Luc Godard; photographed by Caroline Champetier de Ribes; music by Rita Mitsouko. Opens Friday at Facets Multimedia. Running time: 1:22. No MPAA rating (nudity, adult themes). In French with English subtitles.
THE CAST
The Idiot/The Prince ……….. Jean-Luc Godard
The Individual …………….. Jacques Villeret
The Man …………………… Francois Perier
The Admiral ……………….. Michel Galabru
The Admiral’s Wife …………. Dominique Lavanant
The Cricket ……………….. Jane Birkin
