I shall never forget seeing Passion for the first time in 1982 and wondering how the simple shots of an ordinary jet-trail that open the film could be so beautiful. Jean-Luc Godard made so many films, and they were typically divided into many periods across his career. I think of Passion as coming in a period when Godard was less overt in displaying his politics and created features that had reasonably comprehensible though somewhat confusing plots that still had a distinct political undercurrent. Sauve qui peu (la vie), his previous feature falls into the same category. That wasn’t a particularly beautiful film, but much of Passion is gorgeous as a result of a plot-line in which a film director is staging Rembrandt’s The Night Watch using actors. It’s still a challenging film for many people, but I must admit, I like challenging films. – Kristin Thompson