FR 1985 | Director: Jean-Luc Godard | Script: Alain Sarde, Philippe Setbon | Camera: Louis Bihi | Editor: Marilyne Dubreuil | Cast: Johnny Hallyday, Nathalie Baye, Claude Brasseur, Jean-Pierre Leaud | Production: Sara Films/JLG Films | Colour | 35mm | 95 min | french OV with german SUB | Cinémathèque Suisse

For Godard, the Concorde Saint-Lazare is a natural studio, perfectly suited to the genre – just like the Ritz and the Crillon as hotels are natural palaces, and the Lutétia was a natural telephone exchange to the Nazis. In the other eras that have also known this hotel, the guests disembarked from their overseas journeys, for Gare Saint-Lazare is the station for trains to and from Le Havre. The category of leisure travellers ceased to exist long ago. The tourists who’ve taken their place are embodied in Godard’s film by an old American couple that limps through the pompous hall, which still retains its old glamour. The rooms behind the doors along the tunnel-like corridors are economically designed and decorated, according to the most modern stipulations. […]

The melancholic lighting that pervades Godard’s films participates in the former glitz of a once great building. The history of this building type is over, as is the history of a particular cinema. Truth is transparent, says a wise little girl, right now, between appearing and disappearing. (Frieda Grafe, “Film-Historical Hotel Guide”, 1991)