He asks if she’ll ever leave him. She replies ‘Of course not’ as she lifts her downward gaze and turns her blue eyes towards us the audience. Staring defiantly at us, she repeats ‘Of course not.’ By the time ‘Fin’ appears at the end of the film Anna Karina has betrayed her lover, Jean-Paul Belmondo and as revenge he kills her before blowing himself up with dynamite wrapped round his head in Jean-Luc Godard’s ‘Pierrot le Fou.’

Breaking down the ‘fourth wall’ by having characters address the camera directly is a common trick directors use for various purposes. Godard was a particular fan of this method, being simultaneously cheeky and disconcerting. Other directors have used it for characters to reveal their inner monologue and confide in us, willing us to empathise with them. However I can only recall two occasions on which this method has been used to startling effect.

The camera focuses on a woman’s face, other characters continue talking off-screen to her/the music continues playing and while she interacts with the others she eventually turns her attention to us the audience. She does not say a word, there is no voice-over revealing her inner thoughts – she just continues to stare at us, defiant and unwavering.

Pierrot Le Fou [1965]

In Ingmar Bergman’s ‘Summer with Monika’, Harriet Andersson plays a young girl who has a whirlwind romance with Lars Ekborg. But reality hits hard when she finds herself pregnant and they both end up moving to Stockholm to settle down and accept their responsibilities. While he gets a job to support his new family, Andersson reluctant in her new role as home-maker finds herself straying and having an affair. We see her on a lunch-time date, sharing a cigarette with her lover. She sinks back in her seat – the camera following her movements and it’s then that she turns to the camera. It zooms closer towards her and undeterred she stares right back at us.

Summer With Monika [1953]

The boldness of these women, aware of their moral ambiguousness, staring back at us is both powerful and unsettling. They do not say a word to explain their motives. They just continue to stare, daring us to judge them.