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‘It’s Not Me’ Review: Leos Carax Dreams of Godard in an Imperfect Homage and Self-Reflection
The 'Annette' director's meta-textual tribute makes for intriguing (if superficial) mimicry.
From Carax’s raspy voiceover to his jaggedly assembled combination of archival footage and absurd original snippets, the 41-minute short probes a variety of personal and political subjects, but it never quite beats with the furious heart and provocative spirit of Godard’s twilight era. The film not only ponders Carax’s past, through family photos and home videos as well as childhood touchstones like Tintin and David Bowie, but it also laments the future of the moving image, which the director’s voiceover claims has lost its sense of vitality and divinity in the age of cellphone cameras and casual image-making. Just as often as Carax invokes known filmmakers and cultural icons, so too does he splice in images of war, both historical and contemporary, along with the smirking faces of various political strongmen — Xi, Kim, Trump, Assad, Netanyahu and so on — resulting more in broad platitudes than in specific radical thought.
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