Perriot Le Fou

Perriot Le Fou is a film based on Lionel White's novel, Obsession; it is also Jean-Luc Godard's tenth directorial work. The narrative follows Jean-Paul Belmondo and Godard's favorite leading lady (even though this was in production after their divorce), Anna Karina as they play two lovers on opposite ends of the spectrum. Ferdinand (Belmondo) leaves his wife and children for the babysitter, Marianne (Karina) after losing his job he held at a television station. As the film unfolds, the two lovers begin to narrate their love story. However, their back-and-forths begin to contradict what the other is saying. Not only that, they begin to play Bonnie and Clyde. They beat up people and jack their cars, commit a few murders, and of course they blow shit up. Most importantly, they both end up dead at the end of the film. Shocking.

However, Godard's use of lighting, shadows, and colors in the film is very vivid. More specifically, Godard uses the color red in much of the movie in various ways. In one of the first scenes, Godard goes over-the-top with his use of colors. In this party scene, the rooms are flooded with lights that change color from red to blue to green. The scene starts out all red until the nude blonde begins speaking and it suddenly changes to blue. He also dresses Karina in red for most of the film. The walls in her apartment are all bright white which allows her red clothing to stand out more against such a bland background (similar to A Woman is a Woman). Later in the film, the use of red is blatantly obvious. After the lovers are separated, she is wearing a red shirt when they finally reunite. During the heist sequence, Ferdinand's car is red, they run into a little girl wearing a red shirt, and Ferdinand, himself, is even wearing a red shirt under his suit. His choice to surround Karina's character with the color red could be an allusion to how he felt about her and their real-life romance before the divorce. Her dialogue is filled with complaints and double-crossing. Karina's character is even murdered while wearing a red shirt, which can definitely be seen as one final shot to her - no pun intended.