Weekend (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray] by Criterion Collection

Actors

• Mireille Darc
• Jean Yanne

Format

• Widescreen
• NTSC
• Subtitled

Editorial Review

Jean-Luc Godard and Luis Buñuel enjoyed an ardent misanthropic duel in the '60s and '70s, but who won is anyone's call. Godard's Weekend lays down the trump in a harrowing and darkly funny allegory in which social mores fray along political lines. Played out in a metafilm in which characters question their own reality, a morally bankrupt Parisian couple tries to leave the city on a much-loathed country holiday with the wife's parents. Along the way, endless traffic jams, sudden violence, and vistas of gory car crashes underscore their corrupted values. Their lethal encounter with the in-laws and kidnap by an anarchic band of radical cannibals finds the couple–and presumably “decent” society with them–reverting to a nasty primitivism. The idea is of course that the bored, apathetic heart of the bourgeoisie is never far from acting out its most homicidal fantasies. –Alan E. Rapp