One of the best films from Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960s hot streak. Its main subjects are Paris, prostitution and Anna Karina’s face. Worthy topics all. Over a tight eighty-three minutes, the story is made up of twelve chapters, each one a slice from the life of a young woman who leaves her husband and child to pursue an acting career, but ends up instead as the city’s newest sex worker. Karina’s lead character is mostly a beautiful blank slate. She spends more time smoking Gitanes than charming us. It’s beak stuff, but the filmmaking is joyously kinetic, with a wandering camera and influences from cinema verite and the silent era. Godard and Karina were married at the time and he makes her look like a star. Distant. Mysterious. She may have the personality of a dead house plant, but she shines in her tragedy.