To Lose Your Breath — [À bout de souffle], dir. Jean-Luc Godard, France 1960, 90'

Electrifying, nonchalant and full of irrepressible energy, the legendary debut of Jean-Luc Godard. The film from which modern cinema began for good.

Petty gangster Michel (Jean-Paul Belmondo) arrives in a stolen car from Marseille to Paris. There he meets a young American woman, Patricia (Jean Seberg), who takes her first steps as a journalist. The pair flirt with each other and engage in a romantic game — will Michel's criminal affairs affect their relationship?

Breaking with conventions and proposing its own dynamic aesthetic, Breathless paved the way for all subsequent “new waves” and combined a love of American culture with Parisian cinema and the spirit of youth. It is difficult to overestimate the impact of the film on subsequent generations of filmmakers: from New Hollywood to the host of independent directors, for whom Godard's daring work remains an unwavering source of inspiration. Filmed by a small crew on the streets of Paris, To Lose Your Breath also promoted an iconic duo: the boisterous Belmondo and the modern, unapproachable Seberg. The thrilling genre fun we get in Breathless is, on the one hand, a rebellion against the depraved cinema of the 1950s, which the neo-walkers wanted to deal with, and on the other hand, the result of the countless screenings of B-class Hollywood films that they watched passionately in Parisian cinemas. It is also the boorish declaration of the creator, who seems to say: “My name is Godard and before your eyes I am changing what we all love most: CINEMA”.

More than 60 years after its release, Breathless remains a classic that is violent, exciting and still compelling.