LA FILLE SUR LE PONT
GIRL ON THE BRIDGE |
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Director:
Patrice Leconte
Screenplay: Serge Frydman
Cast: Gabor: Daniel Auteuil; Adèle: Vanessa Paradis.
Awards: Best Actor (Auteuil), César Awards (2000).
Running time: 90'
Year of production: 1999
Rating: Restricted (sexual situations)
Gauge: 35mm Cinemascope (B&W)
Distributor: Swank Motion Pictures
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“Shot
in sumptuous black and white, replete with dizzy, swooping camera
effects and gorgeous shots of Paris, Monaco, Athens and Istanbul,
[the film] is like a pocket anthology of your favorite foreign movies
... a meticulous cut-and-paste collage of a half-dozen half-remembered,
dreamed-up movies by Godard, Truffaut and, above all, Fellini.”
A.O. Scott, The New York Times. |
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One
night, high on a bridge, Adèle, a young woman plagued with
bad luck, stares at the river below, gathering the courage to jump.
Gabor, a grizzled middle-aged man, appears from the darkness: “You
look like a girl who’s about to make a mistake.” He tells
her he needs young women like her in his line of work and has found
many previous collaborators contemplating suicide on this very bridge.
Not to be deterred, Adèle jumps. Gabor dives in after her and
saves her life--or perhaps she saves his? So begins a romantic adventure
story about a knife thrower and his human target, two misfits who
travel through Europe with their daring act, forging a telepathic
bond which allows them to develop increasingly dangerous stunts while
also winning big at casinos. Although knife-throwing proves to be
an activity more erotic than sex itself, Adèle finds her relationship
with Gabor, whose sole expression of their growing intimacy is his
professional routine, to be too limited. She sets off with another
man while the lonely Gabor abandons his act and slides into despair.
But when Adèle tires of her new man, she and Gabor start up
a long-distance telepathic communication that allows her to find her
way to Istanbul--just in time to prevent him from making a deadly
“mistake.“
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| PHOTO Courtesy
of Paramount Pictures |
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