The art of film is interpreting/ understanding the director’s intentions, buying whatever the screen is selling. Those are two separate steps, probably, the latter being the most important one for viewers. Both of the two auteurs in this last Wavelengths shorts showcase can do whatever they want. The festival calls this programme ‘Exposes’, and it is obvious how appropriate that title is.

The first short in this programme is Jean-Luc Godard’s Scnaerios, perhals one of this last films, a short with two parts even if both parts are similar in an seemingly obtuse way. Perhaps I’m not giving this short enough credit because both parts eventually have their differences. This is for post- Weekend diehards, conceptual without any regard for neophytes, which is kinda annoying.

After Godard is the real last Godard, Presentation of the Trailer of a Film “Scénario”, where he pitches the film to a man visiting his home, that film being Scenario. The film explains that other one even during an offhand comment, calling the images here ‘hieroglyphics’. This crystallises Godard’s intentions, his recognition that each art form has its own and separate rules. Putting one set of artistic rules in another medium is inherently disruptive, which seems intentional.

There’s a scene here where Godard almost cuts up his storyboards and his producer yells at him but he backtracks, which one can read either on face value or as performance. Either the bad boy is now an old man and age does come for us all. Or he’s performing, or that me thinking this is a performance says more about me than him. Also, as a silly note, his iPhone was on frame for much of the short. There are reasons for this but it’s iconic that his didn’t get notifications on his phone.

The programme sadly says goodbye to Godard and says hello to British filmmaker John Smith. In Being John Smith, he mixes contemporary politics and autobiography, questioning the point of making art. A voice from darkness, he speaks out against the genocide in Gaza through his work. Again, me pointing his allyship out instead of other racialized people is more a me problem. The world burns, he’s funny, levity is necessary from one of the men named John Smith.