Pola X

I kept thinking watching Pola X, the first Leos Carax film I've seen yet, what it means for a film or any work of art to be "pretentious". The dictionary defines it as being or seeming to be "expressive of affected, unwarranted, or exaggerated importance, worth, or stature". Carax does indeed want his film to be important, and sometimes he does go to exaggerated lengths to get his results, of the 'artsy-fartsy' kind that one would only find in small art-houses in NYC (in fact, this was probably a film that screened for at least a month at the Angelika in Manhattan). But there's an intriguing conceit that Carax has with his material as it goes along: it's almost as if he's critiquing pretension, mocking it in subtle ways as he shows his disparate and desperate character heading towards an uber tragic end. It's a story that unfolds too thickly in hopelessness, where the characters don't seem to mind it as there is hope for two of them, at one point, that things will get better until they start getting horribly worse, sometimes in the abstract. Try as I might have at the half-way point to dismiss it as rambling pseudo-poetic French dreck, there's an appeal and watchable quality to it all, and I'd almost be inclined to call it a good effort...Almost.

The story is taken from a Herman Melville novel, though I'd wonder how much exactly was changed in the adaptation (incest, anyone?) Pierre (Depardieu, son of Gerard) is a novelist engaged to beautiful Lucie, and lives with his mother (Deneauve), but is torn away after finding one night in the woods that he has a long lost older sister who was raised elsewhere in Europe. He moves with her to Paris, and after getting rejected by a cousin (Lucas, disappearing for a long while in the film then returning in act three, or five, or whatever), go to live in a big warehouse type of loft where a weird avant-garde rock band practices and records songs. Meanwhile, a new crazy book is in the works, a child that was tagging along with another woman (I'd assume Isabelle's friend or caregiver or something) is killed randomly, and pretty quickly Pierre goes as insane and rambling as his book. Now, granted, a lot of this is presented matter-of-factly, but there is a mood that Carax creates that makes it "affected". There's a tint, for example, that sometimes makes characters look all blue- which works more or less in the revelation of who Isabelle is to Pierre in the woods- and scenes that aren't totally clear as to whether they are really real or imagined (Deneuve's fate on a bike is shot and executed almost as a parody of itself). And Depardieu himself is like a walking pit of uncertain angst. He plays him adequately enough, but there is the creeping sense, as with the film a lot of times, that there isn't quite as much dimension as one would hope, or at least would think the filmmaker would recognize.

Not that this is a total deterrent. I like when a filmmaker isn't afraid to plunge the viewer into unconventional duress and ambiguity, and for at least a few scenes Pola X does feel thriving with a sense of drama infused well by the exquisite but anxious camera-work (the child's death is one of these, as well as the climax that gains momentum in a style comparable to Strosek, minus the chicken). And the actual band in the movie itself seems to be Carax commenting on what he must realize is over-reaching in other sections; is it to be taken seriously, really, when we see the lead singer or whomever it is doing a weird body movement while the abdomen is covered in red? There's even a trippy dream scene with characters in a river of blood that treads that pretension line: you can sense the filmmaker behind it is so happy with how it came out as mad as it is, and it's actually quite an eye-full. Carax also pulls off one of the most explicit sex scenes in film history (full penetration, among other acts of foreplay), and this oddly enough does serve an emotional point- it feels eerie in the light, but strangely intimate.

All of this adds up to what then? Is Pola X worth watching? If you're familiar already with/admire Carax's work, it's a pretty safe bet as an act of semi-experimentation. For a first-timer to his work, like myself, it's a hit or miss experience, but one I wasn't too upset at having. At the least, one can say, Carax didn't go to the lengths of the man who directed a film Carax once starred in: Godard's King Lear. 6.5/10

This movie starts off somewhat slowly and gets running towards the end. Not that that is bad, it was done to illustrate character trait degression of the main character. Consequently, if you are not into tragedies, this is not your movie. It is the thought provoking philosophy of this movie that makes it worthwhile. If you liked Dostoyevsky's 'Crime and Punishment," you will probably like this if only for the comparisons. The intriguing question that the movie prompts is, "What is it that makes a renowned writer completely disregard his publicly-aproved ideas for another set?" The new ideas are quite opposed to the status quo-if you are a conservative you will not like this movie.

Besides other philosophical questions, I must admit that the movie was quite aesthetically pleasing as well. The grassy hillsides and beautiful scenery helped me get past the slow start. Also, there was use of coloric symbolism in representing the mindstate of the main characters. If these sorts of things do not impress you, skip it. Overall I give this movie a 7.

I had just returned from France and was craving a French film to take the edge off the end of a vacation. However, Pola X was the most disjointed and pretentious film I've seen in years. It felt like a bad parody of the genre -- bleak, stilted dialogue; freaky feral-women; and oh the agonizingly beautiful angst of it all. The X in the title apparently refers to the 10th rewrite of the script. One wishes he'd had the insight to take it to 11.

As the previous commentator said, Leos Carax's style did change, although I do not know why. I wouldn't say he has become a German romantic, because I still think Pierre, the protagonist is a man searching for an aesthetic truth within a self-destructing world. He is a newly disillusioned man, who goes through a psychological adventure bitter at the hypocrisy of his old life, striving to strike and lash at the world with the bitter truth he has acquired. Although one could see this as a clear-cut razor sharp character, I find I cannot help but see him as a poet-like figure, in a Paris as stark as it really is, but this isn't new because his depiction of Paris in his last film was far from idealistic..

Imagine the 2,500 seat Lumiere Theatre at Cannes dead silent. No one breathed as the incestuous sex scene began.

Understandably, half of the audience applauded as others booed the close of this film. The innovations in sound are remarkable, and locations stunning, but the crawling pace of a youthful cult leader's slow descent and eventual destruction of everyone near to him is arduous business. Thankfully it is broken up by strange twists of circumstance which justify those tortured looks from monolithic Deneuve and Depardeiu. It's just a bit of a shame that such traditional shock elements (an exploding head, a beautifully choreographed motorcycle accident) are precisely what the audience lives for to lift the weight of the rest of the picture. Carax's reply to the press between long drags on a cigarette, "What explicit imagery?" told me the rest of the story.