Mauvais sang (1986) - film review

In Paris of the not-too-distant future, a mysterious new disease named STBO is killing young people who make love without emotional involvement.  A serum has been developed, but it is locked away in an office block, out of the reach of those who need it most.  An American woman blackmails two ageing crooks, Marc and Hans, into stealing the STBO serum.   Marc recruits Alex, a rebellious teenager whose father worked for him before getting himself killed.   Although Alex has a girlfriend, Lise, he end up falling for Marc’s young lover, Anna...

Leos Carax reaffirmed his standing as an avant-garde French film director of the 1980s with this immensely stylish and daring thriller which pushes the film noir genre into exciting new territory.  As with his equally prominent contemporaries, Luc Besson and Jean-Jacques Beineix, who show a similar cinematic approach, Leos Carax is far more preoccupied with visual style than narrative cohesion or content.  So, whilst the plot appears muddled and implausible, visually the film is stunning, showing great creative flair in the use of both sound and image.

Intense performances – particularly from Denis Lavant (who plays the part of Alex, Carax’s alter-ego, in three of his films) – naturally allow the drama to build to an unbearable tension in places.  The nocturnal location filming and paucity of dialogue create an all-prevailing mood of silent fear and mortality – a striking metaphor for the killer disease STBO, which is clearly AIDS by another name.   By combining the familiar gangster stereotypes with a fresh, reactionary artistic style, Carax offers a post-noir thriller which is truly breath-taking to watch.

© James Travers 2000

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