It took a couple of rewinds and essentially a second viewing to fully appreciate this film, and even then it was hit and miss. I'm guessing that it must have been more powerful in the 1960's, not because it's message isn't still relevant today, but because it's counterculture method of filmmaking, the philosophical and practically stream of consciousness dialog, and depiction of alienation of youth in a world at war where neither side seems right would have resonated more.

One of the issues is that the long soliloquy from the main character (Michel Subor) towards the end meanders and doesn't deliver a payoff. Throughout the film he wants to talk poetry, philosophy, and politics with everyone - including the captors who torture him - but often doesn't say anything that is particularly enlightened. How much smarter is the comment of his girlfriend (Anna Karina),who much more quietly says that the French will ultimately lose the colonial war because they lack the 'ideal' they had in WWII; in other words, ultimately, they're in the wrong.

The film tells a coherent story, unlike some of Godard's later political efforts, but it has a raw and unpolished feeling about it, with bumpy shots out of cars, lots of dubbing, and aspects that aren't all that fleshed out (such as Karina's character). To some, that might be part of its appeal.

As this film deals with the Algerian War through the lens of violence in Europe between the range of people in support of the FLN (intellectuals, sympathizers, and terrorists) and French forces that seem to be lumping them all into that latter category, and because it has some a dramatically different style, it may make an interesting (though quite dark) double feature with 'The Battle of Algiers' (1966).

During the Algerian war for independence from France, a young Frenchman living in Geneva who belongs to a right-wing terrorist group and a young woman who belongs to a left-wing terrorist group meet and fall in love. Complications ensue when the man is suspected by the members of his terrorist group of being a double agent.

The situation in Algeria and the denunciation of the use of torture by both sides are the main themes of the movie. This led to the film being banned for three years in France.

I love how huge the Algeria-France situation looms in French cinema. Do most Americans know that France had a war going on there? Probably not. And yet, it was something the movie directors and artists were very conscious of. I suspect that French film was stronger on the Algerian issue than American films were on Vietnam, at least initially.

I've watched and re-watched the beginning sections, sometimes 5 minutes or sometimes up to 30, of many of Godard's films, and then either got too tired or just wasn't sure I could get through it all at the time. Sometimes it was because the material gets difficult and even egregious to what cinema, in concept, form, execution, ideas, amounts to. And sometimes there's also some very good stuff to savor too, as Godard thumbs his nose and makes new rules to break for himself. Le Petit Soldat, really his 2nd film after Breathless but released later, happens to carry with it, as was the case with Les Carabiniers, the political intent of his later films but with a brisker, more accessible avant-garde style to match the semantics. He also still has the energy going on full-throttle, and there are even moments where the jump-cuts start to feel even more exhilarating than one might've thought in Breathless. And at 80 minutes it says what it has to and exits, but while around leaves many memorable bits in its wake, some small like when Bruno (Michel Subor) rushes back to make a 'bet' by asking Anna Karina's Veronica Dreyer to move her hair around for him. It's a slight aside that's really wonderful, playful whimsy in a film that really doesn't have time for it. Another memorable moment is when Bruno is tortured, with the water crashing down on his head underneath the black mask.

There's also some superb passages put into play, even if said multiple viewings are needed to grasp all of the method to what Godard is after in both the text and the look of the picture. As he's into extremes in style- either very fast in motion, skipping around narrative here and there like jump-rope, or deliberate and almost crude in its attention to length of shots and cutaways and reactions- there's also some extremes to deal with in the narrative too, the content. While it's not as deliriously nutty and experimental as Pierrot le Fou, with the political agenda there more open to interpretation, Le Petit Soldat is pretty serious stuff, with the Algiers topics and spy moments hot-button issues that Godard definitely cares about. What does it mean to be sort of wary of being a terrorist? Does one really commit to the allegiance or back down, and for what reason? Is it also impacted via the other side, who may be no more moral than his own? I still need to see this again some other time, if not just for the message pointers, then for the oddball tautness of the direction.