Les Carabiniers is the fourth feature film French New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard made, as he took the sixties by storm with his convention-defying techniques and incredibly layered content that derived greatly from traditionalist French ideas. I can imagine some of the shockwaves this film in particular sent through France and its neighboring lands. The film is essentially a critique of war done with the familiar tunes of satire to some discernible effect. I will say that after watching Godard's incalculably disappointing eight-part series Histoire(s) du Cinéma, sitting down to watch another Godard film wasn't in my best interest, but it paid off considerably this time around.

The film tells the story of two poor souls who are ordered to serve in battle. They are Ulysses (Marino Mase) and Michelangelo (Albert Juross), who were attracted to the job under the false pretenses that it would bring them wealth and sustainable happiness in the world around them. Their wives, Venus and Cleopatra (Catherine Ribeiro and Genevieve Galea) are doing nothing but encouraging them after hearing about the riches that are in order if they do fight. The two men set course for the battlefields, destroying and complicating every situation in their path, recounting their experiences through postcards through their wives that express the horrors and unforeseen ugliness of battle they weren't prepared for.

Watching Les Carabiniers in 2014 America as a teenager, where for more than half of my life my country has been involved in an overseas war, the film undoubtedly expresses ideas that aren't foreign but frighteningly close to home. In a country that provides subpar care and opportunities for its struggling veterans and where families are distraught every day through deaths overseas, the film provides for a painfully familiar idea to people that war is hell and there's no way to sugarcoat it. Even more surprising is that this commentary is pretty extractable because anybody who knows Jean-Luc Godard, clarity and straightforward formulation of thought are not what he likes to do.

There isn't much to say about the film other than it isn't as serious as it may seem; several small chuckles and jokes are made during the film but serious conversations are had between characters that, in turn, replicate a sad reality many have gone on to accept as the norm. This is just one of the many examples of Godard showing that he was ahead of his time and, look, he didn't have to make a message so alienating and ambiguous after all.

Starring: Marino Mase, Albert Juross, Catherine Ribeiro, and Genevieve Galea. Directed by: Jean-Luc Godard.