Worth: $18.00
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Cast:
Ebrahim Golestan, Jean-Luc Godard
Intro:
... not for all tastes but those who do connect with it will likely want to revisit again and again to spend time with its two magical protagonists.
It’s a delicious idea – bring two ageing filmmaking legends together and turn their correspondence about cinema, life and literature into a documentary.
But Mitra Farahani’s See You Friday, Robinson turns out to be interesting not because of what the two cinema heavyweights – Jean-Luc Godard of the French New Wave and Ebrahim Golestan of the Iranian New Wave – have to say. It’s more about the way they say it…
Both filmmakers passed away recently – Godard in 2022 at age 91, and Golestan in August of this year, aged 100. At the time of filming, Golestan was in his 90s, and Godard in his 80s. Filmed in 2014, Golestan resides in a rather oppressive mansion/castle in West Sussex, while Godard lives in far more humble digs in Switzerland. Director Farahani offers narration in her almost child-like voice, explaining how she wrote to Godard saying that a meeting between he and Golestan “was bound to happen in the 1960s. But it did not. Could this meeting – this imaginary meeting … turn from imagination to reality?”
The correspondence happens via email, on Fridays. Godard’s messages are cryptic – he sends things like a fragment of James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake or the bizarre and frightening image of the Goya artwork, ‘Saturn Devouring His Son’. Golestan, who detects a streak of playfulness (as well as a “certain pretentiousness”) in Godard, is left to put the strange pieces of a puzzle together.
Farahani seems to spend most of her time with Golestan, and they are seen interacting. But when she’s on the mainland with Godard, she’s more of a ‘fly on the wall’ as her camera follows the filmmaker as he struggles up the stairs, lights a cigar, or sorts his washing. At one point, he grabs what looks like a handheld camera off the table. Is the great auteur going to film something? No, it’s a dustbuster – a handheld vacuum and he’s up for a spot of cleaning. But it’s Godard. And these mundane moments are strangely enjoyable, his playfulness ensuring that this beautifully filmed doco doesn’t take itself too seriously.
See You Friday, Robinson is not for all tastes but those who do connect with it will likely want to revisit again and again to spend time with its two magical protagonists.
