For Ever Mozart

A grizzled film director sets out with several members of his household (including the fictitious granddaughter of Albert Camus) to stage a Musset play in embattled Sarajevo. As these modern-day Quixotes proceed on their fool's quest through the bloody chaos of Bosnia, Godard provides witty, wintry updates of earlier masterpieces, including Weekend (journey of bourgeois buffoons through an apocalyptic, neo-barbarian landscape), Les Carabiniers (absurdist war film with offhand atrocities) and Contempt (contentious filmmaking by the sea, with ranting producer, exasperated actress, and pornographic dialogue). For Ever Mozart mixes fast-paced intellectual vaudeville with graceful philosophical reflections and startling moments of quiet beauty that pierce through the rapid-fire barrage of quotation and gunfire.