what happens when you spend your saturday sitting an exam?

I literally just got back from my French film exam. I have done three silly things today and it is not even noon. And I'm not too proud to tell you about them here, in chronological order:

1.) It was so crowded in the hallway outside the examination room that I didn't even think to make sure that I was entering the correct restroom. Yes, in other words, I first went into the men's room. Seeing urinals, I thought, "Shit, I could have sworn the women's was on the left." I have no idea if other people noticed. If not, good. If they did, there were probably a lot. So many people were standing near the toilets.

2.) How about some irony? I rewatched five films to prepare for the exam: Subway (1985), Lacombe Lucien (1974), Les 400 Coups (1959), A Bout de souffle (1960), and Diva (1981). I anticipated that I would have to write two essays on the different groupings of the films (i.e. New Wave, cinema du look, etc.), so that's why I did this. But I ended up just writing an essay on Les Amants du Pont-Neuf (1991). I didn't rewatch it because I thought I remembered it well enough, but I dreaded the moment I actually had to name the main character. I think it's Alex. I hope so. That's what I wrote throughout the essay. I admit it wasn't very structured and that it was half-assed. But then I found myself reenergized for the second essay. Read on.

3.) The second essay, which was considerably a lot longer because I had so much more to say, was about how A Bout de souffle is the "most radically innovative film," "in cinematic terms," that I have studied on the course. Why is this funny other than the fact that I hate watching the film? I wrote a fuckin' killer essay. It is so good in fact that I wish I could get a copy of it. I love it because it was an essay that came together organically, really. There was never a point at which I stopped and realized I might be on the track toward contradicting myself. What a relief!

(In case you're interested, I wrote about how Godard uses innovative technology, editing methods, and storytelling techniques to illustrate his ideology that cinema is just an illusion of reality. In other words, he's acknowledging that there's not much of a story to A Bout de souffle. Instead, he's just manipulating the medium to show how constructed a medium it is.)

Five down. Three to go!