Closing film: It’s Not Me

Here’s your proof that the death of Jean-Luc Godard does not mean the death of Godardianism: Leos Carax has been passed the baton. It’s Not Me is the apple and Histoire(s) du cinéma is the tree. Carax’s self-portrait and (what a surprise!) video essayistic endeavour has the charm of a bedside diary – in part intimate and vulnerable, in part a collection of heterogeneous half-thoughts, from ironic delusions of grandeur to the kind of cheeky jokes you’d write on the corner of a napkin, and, of course, wedged in between, astute meditations on the state of cinema. Browsing through film history as much as through his own 40 year-old career, Carax still bears his enfant terrible crown, but ascends here to the title penseur, using images to write theory. Denis Lavant and Juliette Binoche are unmissable guests on this journey; It’s Not Me is about Carax as much as it is about everyone who made him what he is. (Dora Leu)