THE IMAGE BOOK

Awarded a Special Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Jean-Luc Godard’s challenging, ambitious new work finds the 87-year-old auteur pushing the boundaries of the art form once more.

The Image Book is a missive on modern humanity in five parts: the act of remaking; societies in revolt; the movement of trains on railway lines; the principles of justice; the Middle East. An image from a classic film is paired with found art, or footage of real-life violence. An index finger points upward, beyond the frame.

Six decades into a remarkable career, Godard (Goodbye to Language, MIFF 2014) remains one of cinema’s most relentless innovators. Here, he combines the language of a visual essay with ingenious usage of surround sound, offering a potent commentary on a world saturated – and overwhelmed – by images.

"A salvo of anger and soul-searching inquiry … Godard simultaneously shows the capacity for images not just to record and report but to argue and analyse." – MUBI Notebook