'' Goodbye to Language '' premiered on 21 May 2014 , at the Lumière Theater in competition at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival . Godard was expected to attend the festival , but announced that he would not a few days before the screening . Godard told '' Radio Télévision Suisse '' that he did not want the Palme d'Or and would give it to his tax advisor if he won , just as he had done with his Honorary Oscar . Shortly afterwards he sent a video letter to retiring festival president Gilles Jacob and artistic director Thierry Frémaux explaining his absence from the festival and current state of mind . The video letter was intended to be private , but Jacob released it to the public as a short film called '' Letter in Motion to Gilles Jacob and Thierry Fremaux '' . Main competition jury president Jane Campion said that " the fact that he throws narrative away , it 's like a poem . I found myself awakened . This was a free man . " Amy Taubin attended the first screening and called the film a masterpiece , writing that it " might be his most beautiful , Mozartian in its lightness , and unrestrained in communicating feelings about love . " Manohla Dargis of the '' New York Times '' wrote that " finally , the competition lineup had something it has desperately needed all week : a thrilling cinematic experience that nearly levitated the packed 2,300-seat Lumière theater here , turning just another screening into a real happening " and called it " deeply , excitingly challenging . " On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes , '' Goodbye to Language '' has an approval rating of 88 % based on 73 reviews , with an average rating of 7.1 / 10 . The website 's critical consensus reads , " As visually thrilling as it is inscrutable , '' Goodbye to Language 3D '' offers a late-period masterpiece from a legendary director still very much in control of his craft . " On Metacritic , the film has a weighted average score of 75 out of 100 , based on 28 critics , indicating " Generally favorable reviews "
2014 Cannes Film Festival
2014 Cannes Film Festival
Goodbye to Language