Wind from the East, one of the latest of Godard's revolutionary epics, fails miserably: first, aesthetically, because Godard cannot find a myth or a situation by which to bring to life its Maoist ideology, a problem he has failed to solve in many of his films. It is conceptually weak and inane as well, failing to make any coherent statement about revolutionary purpose, although the basis of Godard's technique in this film is the accumulation of statements. (p. 65)

Because he relinquishes the aesthetic potential of his medium with its capacity to move at will from one segment of time and place to another, Godard cannot convey the sense of historical struggle. But his choice of an unrelieved placard style, substituting statement for a nuanced development of dramatic conflict exposes as well disturbing features in Godard's new ideology. It is one thing to note that Godard's imagery of primitive...