Jean-Luc Godard, that iconic and frustrating pioneer of the French New Wave, has a new film.  Goodbye to Language is 70 minutes long and it’s in 3D.  Knowing Godard (but does anyone really know Godard?), it’s probably going to be a film that’s going to be loved by many and hated by even more.

Goodbye to Language premiered at Cannes yesterday and, perhaps surprisingly given Godard’s lack of concern with traditional narrative, much of the response has been both positive and baffled.  Speaking as someone who hasn’t seen the film but who is somewhat familiar with some of Godard’s films, I think the best review so far was posted by A.A. Dowd over at the A.V. Club.  (Dowd also makes a very important point about why it is necessary to properly reflect on a film before passing judgment and why so many other critics fail to do just that.  Seriously, read the article.)  Dowd usually gives letter grades to the films that he reviews.  For Goodbye to Language, his grade is “?????”

All of this, needless to say, makes me very much want to see Goodbye to Language for myself.  Though I haven’t been able to find a release date, the film is apparently being distributed by 20th Century Fox so maybe it will eventually make its way over here to the States.  (That said, I’m a bit worried that even if it does, it will only be shown in New York and Los Angeles and will never make down to my part of the country.  There seems to be an elitist belief that people in middle America aren’t interested in seeing the latest from Jean-Luc Godard and, unfortunately, that’s probably true…)

But until it does, here’s the NSFW trailer for Goodbye to Language.  Can you figure out what’s going on?  I can’t and I speak French.  But that impenetrability is a part of what makes me want to see the film.

And here’s a version of the trailer with English subtitles.