The best Jean-Luc Godard’s romance movies

A superficial woman has conflict between choosing her abusive husband and her vain lover.

The protagonist is Carmen X, a female member of a terrorist gang. She asks her uncle Jean, a washed-up film director if she can borrow his beachside house to make a film with some friends, but they are in fact planning to rob a bank. During the robbery she falls in love with a security guard. The film intercuts between Carmen's escape with the guard, her uncle's attempt to make a comeback film, and a string quartet attempting to perform Beethoven.

A subtitle warns, "beware of dark sunglasses." Anna and her lover, whose looks in bowler and bow tie are reminiscent of a young Buster Keaton, kiss chastely on a bridge overlooking the Seine. He dons sunglasses and waves as she runs down a stairway to the river's edge, then watches in horror as she's knocked flat and loaded into the back of a hearse. In vain, he gives chase. Disconsolate, he buys a large funeral wreath and a handkerchief from sympathetic vendors. He removes the glasses to wipe his eyes and realizes they are the cause of all his woe. He replays the farewell without the glasses.

Godard narrates the loosely constructed story of a young woman attempting to make her way from her home in the country to Paris, amid a massive flood.

Claire (Virginie Vitry) is a chic young Parisian woman married to a somewhat older husband, Jean (Jacques Doniol-Valcroze). As this 28-minute trifle opens, she leaves her husband playing baroque music at the piano, telling him she is off to see her sister, Solange. In reality she meets her lover, Claude (Jean-Claude Brialy) at his apartment; after some idle chatter and love-making he tells her a story of the shriveled heads that the Jivaro indians used to give their lovers as tokens of affection but as she shivers in disgust, he gives her a mink instead. How will they hide it from her husband though?

Two young people, Walter and Charlotte, are walking through a small village in Switzerland a snowy winter day. Walter introduces Charlotte to Clara, hoping to make Charlotte jealous. After saying good-bye to Clara, Walter accompanies Charlotte into her house, although she doesn't want him to. Charlotte is hungry and cooks a steak. She asks Walter if he wants a piece of it. He says no, but she gives him a small piece anyway. He wants a kiss, and she says no. She starts to compare herself with Clara, who Walter agrees is more beautiful. In spite of this, Walter says he likes Charlotte much more, but she thinks he is lying. She notices that he is cold and shivering. She hugs him, he kisses her, and she starts kissing him. After leaving the house he accompanies her to the train.