"A Woman Is A Woman"

It is incredible looking back and relating this film to the later Godard work. Compared to his later work which is incredibly bizarre and convoluted with little to no plot to follow; this film was fairly simple. In my opinion it was a parody to a traditional musical. The times chosen to sing seemed to be obviously in-opportune and un-necessary. The general plot of the movie was very untradional and not typically put into song. Anna Karina played an unstable stripper that wanted more than anything to become pregnant. Her boyfriend refused and the film was made up of entertaining fights between the lovers. Eventually Anna Karina's character sleeps with a man they encounter daily. When her boyfriend finally agrees to sleep with her she tells him of her relations with the other man. Now if she does indeed get pregnant, they will be unsure who the father of the baby it actually is.

In this film we see early signs of Godard's theme of female sex-workers in his films. The neighbor in the apartment is a prostitute and happily has men coming and going every time she is shown. Godard typically shows prostitutes as average people and often joyful. Anna Karina's character is a stripper. This role is somewhat innocent in Godard standards and may represent the freshness of Godard and Karina's relationship at the time.

This was the first film we saw Godard's idealization of Karina. Constant close-ups and admiration of her beauty continues throughout the film. Some may see Godard's idealization of Karina to be demoralizing to women. They may feel this is puting a women on a petistle and not treeting them as an equal. I am impartial to the argument and feel that a director has the right to depict his characters in any mannerism chosen.