Okay first things first, this is a French movie, therefore it's subtitled and i warn you all now the film is also in black and white. Which causes a problem because the subtitles are in white text so when there is an abundance of white on the screen the subtitles become quite unreadable.
Directed by Patrice Leconte, lasting an hour and 32 mins and staring Daniel Auteuil and Vanessa Paradis, apart from the minor invisible subtitle problem, this film is fantosstic!
The basic storyline is as follows: Adele (Vanessa Paradis) isn't a happy bunny and is about to hurl herself off a bridge (hence the title, isn't it witty) when Gabor (Daniel Leconte) starts chatting away to her in an attempt to get her to become his new assistant. ('What does he do?' i hear you ask)
Well Gabor is a knife-thrower and suicidal women are, quite logically i have to admit, the best assistants as they have a death wish an all. So the two go off to do their shows around the world and develop an interesting relationship.
I'm gonna quickly make a comment on Gabor and Adeles relationship, trying not to ruin and reveal too much of the storyline, from the start the on-screen chemistry between the two is just screaming at you! It's quite frustrating because all the way through the film until the very end, Gabor is a complete gentleman, he doesn't take advantage of the vunerable Adele, like every other man in this film.
There is a particular scene in this film where Gabor is throwing knives at Adele under a railway bridge, that is especially filled with sexual tension and frustration, knife-throwing has never been ssooo dripped with thigh-quivering tension as this one, yet we are given no release. Right at the end the line is finally crossed, but if your hoping for a rampant sex scene you'll be disappointed, but the ending is still most satisfactory for the romantics among us.
One can't finish this brief review without mentioning Philosophy. France has a long and great history of it and this film incorpurates numerous doses of it. Gabors arguements to persued Adele of various things are prime examples. The little stories that he tells to put across his ideas and views are simple to understand and memorable, i've even used some of them in my philosophy class! So applause for Serge Frydman, who wrote the screenplay.
If you get the chance to see this film, it is most worth seeing, and for those of you in the UK it's just been released on VHS, but is quite pricey as it's a forgien film. If you like wierd, comedy romance type films this is the film to see. |
