Notre Musique

<center><i>Shot and Reverse Shot
Imaginary: Certainty

Reality: Uncertainty

The Principle of Cinema:

Go Towards the Light and Shine it on Our Nigh

Our Music</i></center>

Part poetry, part journalism, part philosophy, Jean-Luc Godard’s “Notre Musique” is a timeless meditation on war as seen through the prisms of cinema, text and image.

Largely set at a literary conference in Sarajevo, the film draws on the conflagration of the Bosnian war, but also draws on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, the brutal treatment of Native Americans, and the legacy of the Nazis.

“Notre Musique” is structured into three Dantean Kingdoms: “Hell,” “Purgatory” and “Heaven.” 

In the film, real-life literary figures (including Arab poet Mahmoud Darwish and Spanish writer Juan Goytisolo) intermingle with actors; and documentary meshes with fiction. 

“Notre Musique” also follows the parallel stories of two Israeli Jewish women, Judith Lerner (Sarah Adler) and Olga Brodsky (Nade Dieu); one drawn to the light and one drawn towards darkness.

Through evocative language and images, Godard explores a series of conflicting forces:

<center><i>death; life

dark, light;

good; bad

negative, positive

real; imaginary;

activists; storytellers

vanquished; victor;


criminals; victims;

suicidal; hopeful

shot, reverse shot.</i></center>

These opposing movements are eternal.  They are the two faces of truth.

They are our music.

“BEAUTIFUL AND ELEGANT. Like Dante's ''Divine Comedy,'' this autumnal meditation on war, violence and ethnic hatred is divided into three parts: hell, purgatory and paradise.”

– A.O.Scott, New York Times