Boy Meets Girl

The first film by Leos Carax - piercing, sincere. Carax is only 23 years old - a young genius - a genius in depicting the nuances of youthful depression and the loneliness of human existence. The heroine is like a touching Pierrot. Like a fragile crystal flower. And the general impression is the unbearable fragility and beauty of being.

Visual treat as almost all Carax films. What a debut!

The protagonist Alex (Denis Lavant) rarely smiles. He does not drink or smoke. and makes films or wants to make them. The girl Mirielle (Mirielle Perrier) is extraordinarily attractive, if you discount her bad teeth in the film. The film has a sequence about a mute silent film crew member who jokes about what deaf people saw in silent films by lipreading that escaped normal people. The film has a brief shot tipping Carax's hat to Welles' "Citizen Kane." Both made their debut films at the same age of 24. Both wrote their original scripts

Denis Lavant has repeatedly worked for Carax, Mirielle Perrier again in Carax's Mauvais Sang.

The use of David Bowie's song "When I live my dream" (sung by Bowie). is a fascinating touch.

The visuals and the use of music and silences are a trademark of Carax. Lavant wears checked jacket and holds a scarf of of his previous love with the same design. When he is with Mirielle, the jacket is off andhis striped shirt matches the stripes of Mirielle's clothes.

Beautifully shot, but tediously slow. Even with all the references to French New Wave filmmaking from a couple of decades before, the story didn't hold my interest, and the characters were hard to care for. There was not enough effort put into developing them beyond damaged, emotionally fragile people. Carax instead labored over other scenes, like the three full minutes spent with the young man playing pinball near the end, at a point where I was already hoping the remaining run time would pass quickly.

The cinematography is undeniable, however, and there is a certain lonely mood captured here that may resonate, if you can put up with a story that moves in fits and starts. Can love, like a phoenix, rise out of the ashes of former relationships for these two people, we wonder when they talk at length in the kitchen while a party carries on outside, maybe the film's most interesting scene. It had its moments, but isn't one I'd recommend.

Boy Meets Girl casts a recurring actor to play Alexandre, the protoganist who is the namesake of the young writer/director's real name, and Mireille as a cinematic version of herfself, the then girlfriend of director (pseudonym Leos Carax). This is an ingenious indie debut feature film with a flair for visual style (cinematography from Jean-Yves Escoffier) and beautiful use of black and white.

The.story is a love story but finds many ways to make it less dramatic and tragic with comedy, poetry and philosophy. The dialogues and monologues are crisp. Perhaps the greateat strenght of the.screenplay, yet the silent momemts, music and movement also conterbalance the heavy reflections on art, war, friendship, life and love.

A.gentle mix of video, music, dance, signing, poetry, metacognition and metaphysics with contemplative pacing and editing. Few films achieve this and eapecially om the first try for a film writer/director immense joy to watch. Expect European slower shots and French New Wave style if you are use the US constant drama and movement.

Leos Carax made his own stamp of filmic storytelling in Black and White with fascinating use of light and framing of imagery. Can't forget the frame with the 4-pane window shadow in a room with sparse furniture - so simply captured that the mood and tone is instantly felt. It's practically a piece of art just looking at that frame in that moment in time: before Alex opens the door coming in, and once again when he leaves us to this arresting image on screen.

Carax's style of telling his dramatic stories does border on melodramatic touches. This 1984 "Boy Meets Girl", his first feature film, showed us his poignant understanding of the younger set in love. The emotional entanglements and angst - struggling to be loved by the one you want the love from and disappointment awaits. Such a common premise is dealt in an uncommon insightful depiction, with graphically framed imageries. The ending demonstrates his use of subtle yet telling visual approach, letting the audience know what's really going on without words uttered. Come to think of it, that's how he ended his films - the strength of soundless or non-dialog scenes tells it all impressively.

It's certainly not your usual teen angst movie - Carax's films are not simple by any means. Emotional layers, love in conflict and flight are ever present. Regular street scenes and night shots by the river with lighted bridge afar are his common backdrops. Discourses on love and relationships you will find. If you like to go steps further and really plunge into French conversations of love, sex, and relationships, try Jean Eustache's 1973 "The Mother and the Whore" (La Maman et la putain; NFE = not for everyone), also shot in B/W. Let Jean-Pierre Leaud's Alexandre lead you through the 3 hrs. 30 mins. verbal journey, with Bernadette Lafont as Marie "la maman", and Francoise Lebrun as Veronika "la putain".