Wasteland. Dialectical. Khatchatourian.

Ever wondered what a version of Lolcats – those videos of kitties on the web – by the great Jean-Luc Godard might look like? Well, there would probably be some cats in it. Then there might be blotchy camera-phone footage of various vaguely defined characters mumbling crazily on a cruise ship. Every now and then, Patti Smith could stroll across the deck with a guitar. About halfway through, the director would, perhaps, drop the cruise ship theme and offer us an image of a petrol pump attendant reading Balzac to a llama.

After dallying with this character and her associates for a while, we might settle into a montage that alternates various totalitarian atrocities with bold, gnomic declarations. To close, the words “NO COMMENT” pin the lucky viewer into his confused seat.

Shark. Moratorium. Hedgehog.

Only in Cannes could the day’s hottest ticket be something so wilfully, confoundingly obscure. Perhaps, the packed audience was annoyed by what it saw. Perhaps, this is what it was looking for. At any rate, given that Godard, the bruiser of the Nouvelle Vague, has been at this game for more than 40 years – since Weekend, perhaps – nobody should have been surprised by what unfolded.

To get a sense of how difficult Jean-Luc, now 79, is being, consider that this is the only non-Anglophonic film in the two main strands at Cannes to play with no formal English subtitles. There are words in English on the screen – on the French print, that is – but they bear only passing relevance to what the characters are actually saying.

For all the frustration, there are certainly things to enjoy in the opening sections. Indeed, the sheer arrogance and audacity of the enterprise is quite invigorating. Only Godard fanatics and the profoundly deranged will, however, manage to sustain interest longer than half an hour.

Masochism. Choreograph. Eccles Cake.