“Do it beautifully, because this is not a dream.”

That’s a line the French filmmaker Jean Luc Godard might have written for the character of the filmmaker in “SHUFFLE & CUT, (A Question for Godard),” a film by South Whidbey resident Richard Evans.

Evans’ filmmaker (played by Evans) rails against the strictures and limitations of the modern film industry in which he remains misunderstood, driving himself into a beautiful frenzy of frustration.

In “SHUFFLE & CUT” his films-within-a-film and lives-within-a-life are presented through the shuffle of scenes, both real and imagined, in this part homage to Godard and other innovators of the film world. It is also, more importantly, part autobiographical supplication to the world.

But, although this film piles layer after layer of everything from real-time footage, scripted scenes, cuts from his previous films, personal footage of family life from the past and present, footage from Hollywood features on which he worked and some enchanting and ethereal shots that look like the main character’s dreams of some distant time or place of his memory, “SHUFFLE & CUT” is quite entertaining and wry.

But, even with all the funny bits, the moviemaker’s rage against the machine remains.

As Evans writes in his press release for the movie: “‘SHUFFLE & CUT’ documents one artist’s struggle to make his voice heard in a culture crippled by a blockbuster mentality; a belief that bigger is better, and the 3-Deification of CGI.”

“SHUFFLE & CUT” does a good job of telling the story of the filmmaker who struggles to get investors interested in financing his latest piece of work. His daily life is a nightmare of trying to finish his movie, while trudging through a series of daily pointless phone calls to the ethersphere of the monied set, wherever they are in the woolly world of those with money.

But, back in his wooded idyll by the water, the filmmaker also has to contend with such forces as his failing eyesight (his connection to a kind of Alice’s wonderland), other potential health problems and the indifference of his fed-up wife (played exquisitely by Evans’ real-life spouse Jo) who spits her frustration out in lines such as, “You hide behind the camera.”

Here the line between reality and art is blurred.

Regarding his idea of a film within a film, she tells him with the demeanor of a broken-winged bird, “Even if I’m in it, I don’t want to be.”

The wife’s annoyance at the filmmaker’s obsessive behavior is only made more poignant by scenes in which she pines for a child who seems to have been lost or has died, cut with nostalgic photographs and footage of the couple’s real life son, who did indeed die.

“I watch for him and he’s not there,” the wife says while walking along a beach.

These moments of art in imitation of life serve to create some of the most powerful moments in the film, though the viewer is certainly made uncomfortable by the affront of their inescapable realness.

This is part of Evans’ purpose; to forward Godard’s idea that, “Cinema is the most beautiful fraud in the world,” and that “every edit is a lie.”

And just when the viewer is at her most discomfited by the mixture of illusion and reality, Godard’s voice is cut in, asserting aphorisms such as, “Become a part of the film” and “You have to watch for it — the idea of life,” while the viewer is lured even more into the film’s trickster-like spirit and its “art as chaos” ethos.

The story is laced throughout with hilarious and quirky scenes that ground the film and filter its sometimes esoteric quality. Evans makes good use of South Whidbey’s motley crew of character actors, who all do an excellent job within the parameters of Evans’ enigmatic style. (One such scene follows Evans’ character in a pickup truck loaded with oversized sculptures of letters to a friend’s house. (The friend, improvised by Jim Freeman, responds to the sight with one of the funniest lines in the movie.)

After all is said and done, the filmmaker ceremonially burns his script, and a subtitle flashes across the screen: “The tyranny of American culture is not to be underestimated.”

Ultimately, although the filmmaker strives for what seems to be just out of his reach, he does keep what is his — real and unedited memories of a life in and out of a film — even if he may suffer the slings and arrows of identity theft and the fact that his budget will never be $100 million.

“SHUFFLE & CUT” will be shown in two screenings at 4 p.m. and 10 p.m. Friday, July 23 only at the Clyde Theatre in Langley. All seats are $6.

Concept, direction and editing are by Evans; photography is by Evans and Bill Ruth; the music is by Fredde Butterworth, Keith Allen Bowers, Jack Knauer, Jennifer Todd, Michael Licastro and Evans; the audio mix is by Butterworth.

The movie is 107 minutes long and is unrated.