So you’re a girl in a film set in Paris. Suicide lurks in the shadows of the sub-plot and you’re stood on a bridge looking into the Seine desperately hoping that Marlon Brando isn’t about to round the corner. Your character is your average down-on-her-luck waif but, luckily for you, you’re Vanessa Paradis: ex-Chanel model and long-running muse for Johnny Depp no less. There’ll be no brainless bumping with Brando for you. This is 1999. Times have moved on, Brando isn’t dead yet but old-age is not looking that hot on him and thus it will be the dashing Daniel Auteuil who comes to your aid. In a matter of seconds he’ll persuade you that even though your life is a story sad enough to make Shere Khan weep leaping off a bridge is a little bit passé, non? A career in death-defying circus performance is clearly a far better solution. He’s one of France’s most respected actors and he’s playing a knife-thrower so he’s bound to know what he’s talking about. Plus, let’s face it, a knife-thrower is way more alluring than an expatriate-come-experiential-rapist!
I am willing to concede that the whole love-via-averted-suicide-rap is not a wholly original plotline but the manner in which director Patrice Leconte presents his material leaves the audience with the undeniable sense that they are witnessing a unique film-making approach in action. Shot in black and white it is evident by the flow and aesthetic quality of each scene that every frame in this film has been a labour of love; a true artistic composition. A lot of the camera work focuses on Paradis’s striking beauty which is presented in a modest manner that simultaneously teases the audience and makes it impossible for them not to fall in love with Paradis’s character, Adele, just as deeply as Daniel Auteuil’s character, Garbor, does in the narrative.
This attention to subtlety is what makes this picture such a seductive masterpiece, much more so than other so-called erotic classics alluded to earlier in this article. Leconte recognises that what the viewer isn’t shown directly is just as powerful as what they are shown directly and has consequently managed to avoid the usual trappings of ”innovative French cinema” in the form of innappropriate or gratuitous nakedness and inexplicable sex scenes between characters the audience has barely shaken hands with on a visual level.
No DVD collection should be without this film. Not just because the dialogue is witty and off-beat, not just because it is a beauty to behold and not just because of its suave cinematic seduction. It belongs on your DVD shelf, primarily, because it offers a sensuous simulation of something that most, if not all, people want: that feeling of knowing you are truly in love with somebody and that you are truly loved by them in return. That thrill of a deep connection. That unexpected understanding of trust. Granted it’s a bit of a Baz Luhrmann paraphrase but it’s also the most accurate way of describing the vast array of emotions pricked by this beautiful but bitter-sweet love story.
Director: Patrice Leconte
Cast: Vanessa Paradis, Daniel Auteuil
Runtime: 90 min
Country: France
Film Rating: 
