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| BOY MEETS GIRL
(director/writer: Leos Carax; cinematographer: Jean-Yves
Escoffier; editors: Nelly Meunier/Francine
Sandberg; music: Jacques Pinault;
cast: Denis Lavant (Alex), Mireille
Perrier (Mireille),
Elie Poicard (Bernard),
Christian Cloarec (Thomas),
Anna Baldaccini (Florence),
Carroll Brooks (Helen); Runtime: 100; MPAA Rating: NR;
producer: Patricia Moraz; WinStar; 1984-France-in French
with English subtitles) "Pensively poetic." Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz Enfant
terrible French auteur Leos Carax ("The Night Is
Young"/"The Lovers on the Bridge"/"Pola X"), as
his first feature film, directs at 24 this
low-budget personal vision film in black and white.
It's about doomed love in Paris among youthful lost
souls and the failure they experience over performing
sex. The story is slight and the film is plot-less,
but the photography is magical, the atmosphere is
pensively poetic and the weird scenario is gripping.
It leaves an indelible mark on the viewer who is able
to overlook its indulgences and get into its unique
nocturnal look at Paris for those romantics who are
misfits. The
aimless 24-year-old Alex (Denis Lavant),
the director's alter ego, has broken up with
girlfriend Florence (Anna Baldaccini),
who immediately recruits Thomas (Christian
Cloarec) as her next boyfriend. Set
to report for army duty tomorrow, the wannabe
filmmaker Alex is upset that he's been
rejected by Florence and is obsessed with finding
another lover and some fulfillment for his empty life.
After listening to music on headphones in his bare
garret apartment, he checks his penciled on the wall
map of the sites in Paris where he experienced
important personal events. Then he leaves to go
shoplifting for records and leaves them at Florence's
door with a love letter he slips under her door, and
walks the night streets of Paris alone. He stops only
to play pinball in loser cafes, until he finally
stumbles upon a couple breaking up via
the building intercom and crashes the party by
posing as a friend of the postal
worker Bernard (Elie
Poicard). He's admitted by the
ditzy middle-aged hostess even though Bernard has
just left after his breaking up with the sullen failed
actress Mireille (Mireille
Perrier). Alex
lucks out because when Mireille wants to be alone,
she joins him in the kitchen for a cup of tea. Enchanted
with Mireille's aloofness,
strangeness and ghost-like voice, Alex falls in love
with her, but a love connection for the two lost
souls is hardly possible in such a morbid film. It's
the kind of film that reminds me of Eraserhead
(1977), and makes me want to embrace it in the same
way. REVIEWED ON 7/31/2012 GRADE: B+ Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews" © ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DENNIS SCHWARTZ |