A philosophical French sci-fi film noir inspired by a Paul Éluard poem? Now we’re talking. With a vision strange and new, Jean-Luc Godard’s Alphaville conjures a not-too-distant future despite taking place in black-and-white on the rain-dampened streets and in the mod buildings of mid-’60s Paris with minimal dressing.
Weren’t elements of this plot swiped for an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation? A omniscient computer named Alpha 60, like a digital Big Brother, controls the city’s pill-popping technocratic inhabitants and speaks to them in French with a electronically processed voice that sounds like a belching toad or a deeper version of Boussh. There are few outbursts in Alphaville because there is no memory of the past or hope for the future, and those who behave illogically are condemned to death, as are those who use forbidden words, such as love, why or conscience; revised dictionaries are issued daily so the populace can keep up. The executions are carried out as entertainment at an indoor Olympic swimming pool. The free spirits are lined up along the edge and allowed some final words, which they usually reserve to rally against their hive mind oppressor, then they’re shot. After they topple dead into the pool, a team of synchronized swimmers leap in and perform a routine. Then the audience applauds.
A secret agent by the name of Lemmy Caution (Eddie Constantine) is dispatched to Alphaville and soon sets out on a mission to bring down Alpha 60. Donned in fedora and trenchcoat, he moves about the city under the guise of a newspaper reporter, packing a 35mm Agfa and a revolver, both of which he fires often and with little notice. A classic film noir hero, he’s a hard-bitten chain smoker with a face as chiseled and weathered as Robert Stack’s.
Despite his impassiveness, he has more emotion than anyone else in the city, even more so after he meets Natasha (Anna Karina), a pretty confidante and guide. Alpha 60 is intrigued and has Lemmy brought in for questioning. It begins as boilerplate: what’s your name, where were you born, how old are you. Sensing a higher intelligence, Alpha 60 moves to philosophical abstraction:
Alpha 60: Do you know what illuminates the night?
Lemmy: Poetry.
Alpha 60: What is your religion?
Lemmy: I believe in the inspirations of conscience.
Alpha 60: Do you make any distinction between the mysterious principles of knowledge and those of love?
Lemmy: In my opinion, in love there is no mystery.
With that last answer especially, Alpha 60 is convinced Lemmy is lying and a bad influence. Realizing he’s worn out his welcome, our hero guns his way out with little resistance, killing the computer’s inventor/controller for good measure. The hold on its collective mind severed, Alphaville’s populace staggers around dumbfounded; most of them, we’re told, die eventually. Lemmy steals a car and hustles Natasha inside. As they speed off back to the outlands, he warns her not to look back and she says for the first time, “I love you.” Awww.
Although I can see how you could disparage Alphaville as oh so very French with its pointed artiness and meandering musing, I found it engrossing and entertaining enough.