Jean-Luc Godard's Pierrot le Fou is an intricate and complex film, rich in visual and verbal allusion to painting, literature, and other films. It moves with its two leading characters, Ferdinand and Marianne …, in a somewhat picaresque journey through a life of trying to escape from society, hypocrisy, and commercialism to a life of crime and violence, ultimately arriving at death, perhaps the only true liberation. Godard's style, an introverted and self-consciously cinematic one, is so closely linked with his narrative and his thematic elements that the two are almost inseparable. Pierrot le Fou is a profound film that contrasts the humane and the inhumane in revelations of the best that man can accomplish versus the worst, which seems to be his more natural tendency.

Godard's use of color is the first noticeable attribute of the film. Pierrot le Fou is not simply a color film; instead, it...