I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Disapointment

Absolutely Fantastic

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

Every once in a while — too rarely — a film unexpectedly hits you like the burst-in-your-mouth of a fresh, flavorsome tomato. You're left sitting with a grin, thinking simply, "Wow. I really enjoyed that." For me, Patrice Leconte's The Girl on the Bridge (La Fille sur la Pont) was one of those films.The film opens with 21-year old Adele (Vanessa Paradis) explaining to a roomful of psychology students why she is suicidal: All her life she has been luckless, especially so with men. She cannot resist men (she feels compelled to try them on, Adele says, like other girls her age try on pretty clothes). Yet men treat her abominably.Cut to a bridge over the Seine. Night. Adele stands on the edge staring down into the water, trying to screw up the courage to jump, the sounds of samba music coming from a passing tourist boat. A man's voice from the dark: "You look like a girl who's about to make a mistake." One of the great pickup lines in film.The voice belongs to Gabor (Daniel Auteuil), a knife thrower in search of a target. He recruits on bridges, he tells Adele, because the women he meets there have little to lose — so if he hits them, it's no big loss. Adele promptly jumps into the river.Fortunately, Adele survives, and she and Gabor perform his knife-throwing act to great acclaim across Europe. In a reversal of fortune for them both, they find that together they have astonishing luck in every facet of their lives. But Adele soon ends it, for with her newfound luck, she has met her Mr. Right, and she leaves Gabor behind.But Gabor and Adele are, as Adele remarks, like the two halves of a torn 50-franc note: Apart, their luck is all bad. Working on a cruise ship, Gabor puts a knife into the thigh of Adele's replacement; he is immediately offloaded in Istanbul, with no means of returning to Paris. Adele is abandoned by her Mr. Right in Athens; she is left lost and destitute.But just as Gabor has lost all hope and is about to jump off an Istanbul bridge, he hears a woman's voice: "You look like a man who's about to make a mistake."The film charms throughout, not least because of the charisma of Paradis and Auteuil. Paradis, in particular, is mesmerizing as Adele, a naive waif with a striking, confident beauty buried inside, waiting to emerge. But Leconte balances the film's charm with a certain gravitas, as throughout Gabor and Adele balance on the edges between life and death; fear and ecstasy; happiness and despair; sexual penetration and emotional laceration. The result is, simply, a pleasure to behold.

Here's another very, very different movie. The dialog is quite different and so is the fact that it's a modern movie filmed in black-and-white. It is part romance, comedy and drama.The camera-work is excellent, but that's no surprise considering Patrice Leconte is the director. He's my favorite European director because his films are visual feasts. His facial closeups and different camera angles are fascinating.Vanessa Paradis is captivating as the female lead character "Adele." She's unusual in that she has a very pretty face but horrible teeth! It's tough not to focus on both the face and teeth at the same time. The dialog between her and "Gabor" (Daniel Auteuil) is different, at least for me as an American. I think the French have a totally different sense of humor....and are superstitious, big-time.I wish the tape had been dubbed, so I could have concentrated more on the great visuals instead of having to read the subtitles.

My ex-girlfriend suggested this movie. She actually gave me a copy. I had thought, previously, since she dug (or seemed to dig) Henry Fool (she later said that she must've been influenced by me, after having attempted to watch Surviving Desire and turning it off because it was too "talky") that perhaps the movie would at least be remotely intriguing. It wasn't.It was a definite case of style over substance. Clearly influenced by MTV (or in Canada's case, Much Music), it was chock full of interesting camerawork, beautiful cinematography, but the sentiments were bland and the story annoying and the characters unappealing. The story is about two incredibly needy, albeit unusual people (well, one is a knife thrower and the other is suicidal) who are tied at the hip and experience this "serendipity" and esp regarding each other. Several scenes show them walking aroung "talking" to each other (each one is in another part of the world). The movie is meant to show this tragic, romantic love affair full of magic and wonder and telepathy, but in the end, it's just a load of hogwash. The film suffers from overwrought sentimentality and a grating, unbelievable storyline that is all about the forces of fate etc.I was just really put off by the whole fairy tale, Cinderella aspect to the story, which seems to broadcast that people can't survive alone, and there is one person out there who is your soul mate. I realize that my own personal biases may influence this opinion, but so be it. I'm not a big fan of fate/ destiny/ the idea that our lives are pre-written. This film is a sickening lecture on the presence of serendipidy and fate and, in the end, I wanted to watch something real and gritty (Trainspotting or something). I mean, I don't mind flights of fancy etc., but this film was trollop. If you're a hopeless romantic who believes in needy, clingy relationships full of jealousy and mistrust, then you may enjoy this flick. If you have more of a philisophical bent and you believe in choice and free will and aren't usually pursuaded by layers of glossy style to conceal the fact that the film is a drab fairy tale, don't see this film. Go see Swimming Pool or 400 Blows if you want excellent french cinema. Avoid this at all costs.I give it 1 out of 10.

The day Vanessa Paradis conquered the world with her childlike 80's hit "Joe Le Taxi" nobody could have thought that a decade later she would be one of the leading French icons, and certainly not a brilliant actress. Cos that's really the least you can say about Vanessa's performance who look like some circusgirl from the fourties, you know the kind of circuspeople like they are filmed in Lynch's "The elephant man". Vanessa plays the role of a young girl Adele who stands at a bridge ready to jump into the river, but just like in every fairy tale she is saved by Gabor (Danny Auteuil) who likes her to be his assisstent for his knife throwingact. She has nothing to loose, too weak to say no (she goes to bed with every guy who is asking for it) and soon she is the muse of Gabor. Even if the two never have any sex with each other, their knifethrowing act is an orgasm itself. And the two might lead a total different life (Auteuil is like a psychotic De Niro) they are made for each other... Is it a love story? Perhaps, but it's just more...at times it's even art (certainly due to the magnificent black and white cinematography) but most of all it's just an ordinary tale from two people who just live their life. "La fille sur le pont" is a genius movie from one of the most original directors France have, and quite unbelievable he started his career with the soulless comedy "Les Bronzés".