Godard's voice carries. He has finished two new films, "See You at Mao" and "Pravda," each about an hour long, in a style going toward the most didactic and thorny destinations, yet he can't for the life of him suppress the force and grace of that singular delivery of his. Even these raw first works of a new stage that is now tough going seem likely in the end to reach the ears of people out of sympathy with his radical politics, not because of the yelling powers of polemics but because of the carrying powers of a poet's voice. Godard can make a silly film or an endearing one, but he can't make an ineloquent one. His path now goes away from narrative completely, and it isn't exactly a paved highway. (pp. 83-4)

The voice of the two films is political and speculative, raised to a pitch...