La Fille sur le pont (1999)
Directed by Patrice Leconte

Film Review

Perhaps the most artistically self-conscious of Patrice Leconte's romantic comedies, La Fille sur le pont is nonetheless an attractive film which, whilst somewhat lacking in substance, makes entertaining viewing.  It achieves a fair balance between dramatic tension and comedy which offsets the film's uneven pacing and over-reliance on stylish visuals to make up for deficiencies in the plot.  It was a major box office success in France, grossing over 20 dollars million, although it was attacked by the critics for its superficiality.

Filmed in lustrous black and white, with some frenzied editing and expansive camera movements, the film looks too obviously like a fan's homage to the French New Wave of the early 1960s.  Jean-Luc Godard's À bout de souffle (1960) is visibly referenced in some scenes, the comparison helped by Vanessa Paradis's striking resemblance to Jean Seberg. Leconte has tended to go over the top stylistically in previous films - notably Le Mari de la coiffeuse (1990) - but here the over-egged artistry comes across as gloss deliberately intended to conceal the vacuity of the narrative and lack of character depth.

There are even some allusions to the French poetic realist dramas of the 1930s in the central romance, but Leconte's focus on style over content does not make for a flattering comparison with, say, the films of Marcel Carné. The pairing of Daniel Auteuil with Vanessa Paradis is daring, to say the least, but despite the obvious lack of on-screen chemistry the two actors complement each other surprisingly well - although it's hard to see how Auteil won a Best Actor César for his performance. Paradis impresses more than she did on the disastrous Une chance sur deux (1998), but she still struggles to make something of her character, although the failing is more the script's than her own. Shallow but inexplicably satisfying, La Fille sur le pont is a film that is definitely more than the sum of its parts.

Film Synopsis

A young woman is about to jump from a bridge on the River Seine in Paris when a stranger approaches her.  He is Gabor, a professional knife-thrower who offers her a chance to begin a new life as his stage partner.  The distressed woman, Adèle, accepts his offer and the two set out on a tour which brings them fame and fortune.  Then, they separate and their luck takes a turn for the worse...