Les Amants du Pont-Neuf (1991)

Les Amants du Pont-Neuf is a French romantic film drama first released in 1991, directed by Leos Carax.  The film stars Juliette Binoche, Denis Lavant, Klaus-Michael Grüber, Edith Scob and Daniel Buain.  It has also been released under the title: The Lovers on the Bridge.  Our overall rating for this film is: very good.


A young man with mental problems, Alex, returns from a homeless shelter to his beloved Pont-Neuf in Paris.  There he discovers Michèle, a distraught young woman, sleeping in his patch.  Michèle ran away from home after breaking up with her boyfriend and when she discovered she had an eye disease which was sending her blind.  With no money, no job, no home, the two youngsters suddenly discover happiness and enjoy a whirlwind romance.  Then Michèle discovers that her eyesight can be saved, but Alex cannot bring himself to let her go...

Les Amants du Pont-Neuf was one of the French film sensations of the 1990s, an imaginative and provocative film which was praised in some quarters as vociferously as it was pilloried in others.   Although the jury is still out as to whether it is or is not a masterpiece, it is a film that does not leave you indifferent – it is far, far too impressive and daring to leave even its most dispassionate of viewers unmoved.

The film begins with a painfully realistic depiction of night life in the streets of Paris and in a shelter for homeless people.  This sequence contains the film’s most poignant images, bearing more than a passing reminiscence to the flickering black and white images of the holocaust which have long since passed into our collective consciousness.   This provides an excellent lead into the film, but it does perhaps create a false expectation that the film will make a profound comment on the issue of homelessness or social exclusion.

The film then quickly returns to the streets of Paris, specifically Pont-Neuf, closed for repairs and a squat for vagrants.  Now the gritty realism begins to become a little corrupted by sentimentality as the film appears to drift hopelessly into the traditional boy-meets-girl love story scenario.  Although that is ultimately the direction the film takes, the film’s photography and editing continues to keep its shocking vividness and originality, so that there is rarely a moment where you feel you are on familiar territory.

The intensity of the performances from Juliette Binoche and Denis Lavant is matched by the astonishing – indeed captivating – photography which pervades throughout the film’s two hour duration.  The images range from the sheer beautiful (such as the beach scene) to the near-heart breaking.  Most astonishing of all is the incredible sequence where the lovers are dancing on the bridge amid the showers of fireworks of the bicentennial celebrations –  that just has to be one of the most amazing pieces of cinema ever made.

The film is less striking in its final section, and here the film does ultimately end up as a more conventional love story.  Fortunately, director Leos Carax still has a few more stunts to pull which just about keeps the film out of the mire of mediocrity it seems at one point to be heading for.  The film’s closing sequence is instantly recognisable from an early French film classic, L’Atalante, which suggests this film more than anything may have been the inspiration for Carax’s film.  His film certainly follows a similar path to that earlier film, albeit in a far more stylised way.

The making of Les Amants du Pont-Neuf took several years to get off the ground, three years to make, and was dogged with production problems along the way.  Denis Lavant suffered a broken leg whilst filming, and Carax’s permit for filming on the bridge expired before he finished his work.   A huge full-scale replica of the bridge was built on a lake in the South of France, at huge cost, making this one of the most expensive films ever made in France.  As a result of this, and some ferociously negative criticism in the media, Carax was dissuaded from making another film for ten years afterwards.

Although all this makes the film an easy target for its critics, it is not fair to pass off Les Amants du Pont-Neuf as a shallow blockbuster movie.   Visually, the film stands as a work of genius and offers a breathtakingly original perspective of a traditional theme.  It is boy-meets-girl but it is all done with such style and enthralling, eye-pummelling impact that, whatever your views, the film will be sure to leave its mark.

© James Travers 2000

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