Jean-Luc Godard didn't make movies to be liked. He made them to disrupt your entire sense of reality. When people sit down to watch 2 or Three Things I Know About Her (or 2 ou 3 choses que je sais d'elle if you’re feeling fancy), they usually expect a narrative. They want a story about a woman. Instead, they get a whisper in their ear—literally, Godard’s own raspy voice—talking about urban planning, the Vietnam War, and the way espresso bubbles look under a microscope. It’s chaotic. It’s brilliant. Honestly, it’s one of the most frustrating and rewarding pieces of 1960s French cinema you’ll ever encounter.
The Film That Isn't Actually a Film
Let’s get one thing straight: this isn't a "movie" in the way Hollywood understands it. Released in 1967, right at the peak of Godard’s obsession with breaking the Fourth Wall, 2 or Three Things I Know About Her is more of a visual essay. It stars Marina Vlady as Juliette Janson, a housewife living in a high-rise apartment complex in the Paris suburbs. To afford the consumerist lifestyle the 1960s demanded, she moonlights as a prostitute.
But here’s the kicker. The "Her" in the title? It’s not just Juliette.
Godard is talking about the city of Paris itself. He’s talking about the dehumanization of the modern landscape. He’s talking about the cruelty of an economy that turns people into products. It’s a double meaning that hits you over the head once you realize the camera spends as much time looking at construction cranes as it does at the leading lady.
Consumption, Coffee, and the Cold War
There is this famous scene involving a cup of coffee. You've probably seen a screenshot of it on some film student's Tumblr or Instagram. The camera zooms in so close on the bubbles in a cup of black coffee that the liquid starts to look like a galaxy. While we stare at this caffeinated cosmos, Godard whispers philosophical musings about the nature of the universe.
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It feels pretentious. Maybe it is. But in the context of 2 or Three Things I Know About Her, it’s a direct attack on how we perceive the world.
Godard was obsessed with the idea that we are being swallowed by objects. In the 1960s, France was undergoing "The Great Reconstruction." Massive apartment blocks were going up. People were being moved from tight-knit communities into sterile, concrete boxes. This film captures that transition with a clinical, almost cold detachment. Juliette doesn't seem "sad" about her situation in a traditional cinematic way; she seems bored. She is just another object among the washing machines and the new cars.
Why Marina Vlady Hated the Process
If you look at the behind-the-scenes history, the tension on set was palpable. Marina Vlady was a seasoned professional, and Godard was... well, Godard. He would feed her lines through an earpiece. She wasn't playing a character so much as she was acting as a mouthpiece for his sociological experiments.
There’s a rawness in her performance because she’s genuinely navigating the discomfort of the director’s demands. She often looks directly at the camera. This "breaking of the gaze" was a hallmark of the French New Wave, but here it feels particularly aggressive. It’s as if she’s asking the audience, "Why are you watching me? What do you want from me?"
The Vietnam Connection
You can't talk about 2 or Three Things I Know About Her without mentioning the political backdrop. The American involvement in Vietnam is everywhere in this film. It’s in the magazines the characters read. It’s in the radio broadcasts. Godard was making a very loud, very angry point: the same capitalist machinery that built these shiny new Parisian suburbs was also fueling a war halfway across the globe.
He connects the dots between a woman buying a new dress and the napalm dropping on villages. It’s a heavy-handed metaphor, sure, but in 1967, it was revolutionary. He wasn't interested in "escapism." He wanted the cinema to be a mirror that forced you to look at the blood on the floor.
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Breaking Down the Aesthetic
- Primary Colors: Notice the use of reds, blues, and yellows. Godard uses a pop-art palette that mimics comic books and advertisements. It makes the world look bright but incredibly shallow.
- The Soundscape: The sound is often jarring. Street noise drowns out dialogue. Godard’s whispering voice-over is mixed so low you have to lean in. It’s a deliberate attempt to make the viewing experience "work."
- Non-Linearity: Don't try to follow a timeline. It doesn't exist. The film is a series of "blocks" of thought.
What Most People Get Wrong About Godard
A lot of modern viewers think Godard was just being difficult for the sake of it. "He’s just trying to be an intellectual," people say. But if you really sit with 2 or Three Things I Know About Her, you realize it’s deeply emotional. It’s a film about the loss of the soul.
He’s mourning. He’s mourning a version of Paris that was disappearing under the weight of "modernization." He’s mourning the way we talk to each other. When Juliette and her husband talk, they aren't communicating; they are reciting facts or complaining about prices. It’s a lonely film.
The Lasting Legacy of the "Essay Film"
Without this movie, we don't get the works of essayists like Chris Marker or even modern video essayists on YouTube. Godard pioneered the idea that a film can be a train of thought rather than a story. He proved that you can use a camera to "write" an article.
Basically, the film asks one major question: How do we live in a world that only cares about what we can buy or sell?
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Practical Ways to Watch and Understand
If you’re going to dive into 2 or Three Things I Know About Her, don't do it on a tiny phone screen while you’re distracted. This is a "lean-in" movie.
- Read up on the context. Spend five minutes looking at the "HLM" housing projects in France during the 60s. It provides the "Why" behind the locations.
- Ignore the plot. There isn't one. Stop looking for a beginning, middle, and end. Look at the film as a gallery of paintings.
- Listen to the whispers. Pay attention to Godard’s voice-over. He’s giving you the keys to his brain, even if those keys are a bit rusty and hard to turn.
- Watch the objects. Notice how the camera lingers on soap boxes, car engines, and neon signs. These are the real "characters" Godard cares about.
The film ends not with a resolution, but with a return to zero. The final shots of consumer products arranged on a lawn like a graveyard are haunting. It reminds us that at the end of the day, all the "things" we know about her—whether "her" is a woman or a city—are just fragments. We never truly see the whole picture. We just see the bubbles in the coffee.
To truly appreciate this work, watch it alongside Godard’s other 1967 film, La Chinoise. They are two sides of the same radical coin. One looks at the domestic life of the bourgeoisie, and the other looks at the revolutionary fervor of the youth. Together, they offer a terrifyingly accurate snapshot of a world on the brink of the 1968 student protests. It's not always "fun" to watch, but it’s essential if you want to understand how cinema became a weapon of philosophy.