Jean-Luc Godard's Film Impression of the Twentieth Century

L'Origine du XXI Siècle (Origin of the 21st Century) - Part 1



L'Origine du XXI Siècle (Origin of the 21st Century) - Part 2


Jean-Luc Godard made this film as a short opener for the 2000 Cannes Film Festival. The film can be perfectly well understood without subtitles. It is a work of incredible beauty and horror. Looking back over the twentieth century, I believe Godard is simply showing us what runs through his head when he thinks of the twentieth century. Naked dead people. Dirt. Guns. Uniforms. Mobs. Armies. Sex. Cinema.

Watch the film closely and you will see various sex acts interspersed with images of grotesque horror and cruelty. Godard shows us a closeup, near the beginning, of a woman gently touching her body. There are several impressions of languid sexual behavior in the midst of all the chaos and desperate movement. I think these shots are a denial of the death march surrounding them. An attempt to adhere to the human - to life. It requires a mental effort to move from the feelings of sexual desire and love, regardless of how base they might be, into the world of frightened refugees who hardly even understand what they are running from. Pleasure requires a certain serenity, a place of repose. You must remove yourself somewhat from your surroundings in order to enjoy the humanity of sex and love. How does a person, stripped of their burning clothes, running through mud, escaping the bombs, being raped and tortured, watching their friends die, ever love again or even come to think of a quiet moment in a neat room where they can touch another person?

Godard sees the twentieth century as mechanized death. Everywhere. We think of the twentieth century as the moon landing and modernity. Progress. Machines. Beautiful cars. Computers. But the century really stands out, not for its progress, but for its vast unrelenting murder. It was the century beyond all others for the wiping out of human beings. Our progress is an illusion. Most of the world has not even seen a telephone. The twentieth century was built on a pile of burning bones and rotting flesh. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the introduction to our brand new twenty-first century. We ain't seen nothin' yet.