GODARD HITS ON THE 'DIVINE' IN 'NOTRE MUSIQUE'.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

JEAN-LUC GODARD'S ``Notre Musique'' (``Our Music''), is a typically dense meditation on war and image. Modeled loosely on Dante's ``The Divine Comedy,'' it is presented in three distinct movements titled Hell, Purgatory and Heaven. A lot of dialectical comparisons are made, and much philosophizing is done.

That might make this latest offering from the intellectual Vesuvius of the French New Wave sound as impenetrable as most of his recent works (``In Praise of Love,'' ``For Ever Mozart'') have been. But for all of its theoretical complexity, ``Notre Musique'' proves a refreshingly moving, relatively easy-to-follow guide to the persistence of mankind's barbarism and our equally dogged hope to achieve some kind of reconciliation before the last light is stomped out.

Hell is among the most powerful suites of pure cinema you'll see all year. Godard simply intercuts documentary war footage with more glamorized combat scenes from Hollywood movies. Set against an austere piano score and a few choice spoken words, the sequence drives home our fatalistic attraction to what we should find repulsive like few anti-war statements ever have.

The main, middle Kingdom, as he and the poet like to call them, is Purgatory. And what better place to set it than in Sarajevo, a city still struggling to rebuild after years of devastating internecine conflict? Mixing fictional characters with actual people - including himself, there to give a lecture about the juxtaposition of cinematic images - Godard builds his narrative around a well-regarded literary conference.

Here, everyone from a fictional French ambassador who saved Jews during World War II to the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwich to a pair of symbolic American Indians explore the slippery interplay of victimizer and victim. The heart of this sequence belongs to two Israeli women, journalist Judith Lerner (Sarah Adler), who hopes to find some path to peace for her own torn land, and the less-optimistic Olga (Nade Dieu), whose political grief may drive her to a transcendent act of martyrdom.

In Heaven, paradise, Godard-style, is guarded by U.S. Marines.

There is something in ``Notre Musique'' to offend almost any sensibility, but those who want to read anti-Semitic or anti-American messages into the picture are missing Godard's larger view. The movie suggests that we look hard at the contradictions that drive people apart and think about what we see with all of the intellect and honesty we can muster.

Otherwise, we'll just react impulsively to the next cool Hollywood explosion, or the next call to identify and attack an enemy.

Bob Strauss, [phone]

bob.strauss(at)dailynews.com

NOTRE MUSIQUE - Four stars

(Not rated: violence, language, racism)

Starring: Sarah Adler, Nade Dieu, Rony Kramer, Jean-Luc Godard, Simon Eine.

Director: Jean-Luc Godard.

Running time: 1 hr. 19 min.

Playing: Landmark's Nuart, West Los Angeles; Edwards University 6, Irvine.

In a nutshell: Godard's most accessible film in years is a devastating meditation on war and its relationship to movie imagery, among other profound topics. In multiple languages with English subtitles.

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Sarah Adler is an Israeli journalist seeking peace in ``Notre Musique.''