The Girl on the Bridge (no 33)

(France 1999 92m) DVD2

Aka. La Fille sur le Pont

Right now.  Anywhere.

p  Christian Fechner  d  Patrice Leconte  w  Serge Frydman  ph  Jean-Marie Dreujou  ed  Joëlle Hache  m  Benny Goodman, Angelo Badalamenti, Gordon Jenkins, Brenda Lee, Marianne Faithfull (and others)  art  Ivan Maussion  cos  Annie Périer

Daniel Auteuil (Gabor), Vanessa Paradis (Adèle), Demetre Georgalas (Takis), Isabelle Petit-Jacques (the bride), Frederic Pfluger (contortionist), Bertie Cortez, Nicola Donato,

It’s not without a certain trepidation that I begin this piece, for in truth trying to capture the reasons for the inclusion of Patrice Leconte’s piece is a very tricky thing.  The fact is that it’s very difficult to pin down the reasons why I like it so much.  If you look the film up in any film guide or any internet review site you will find that many reviewers will say that the film is primarily for extreme romantics.  I don’t easily pigeonhole there, in that I’m a supreme anti-romantic.  Others might say that you need to be a real fan of the director and its female star, but that’s only partly true of me.  In the case of Leconte his films of merit (Monsieur Hire, Tango, Ridicule, etc) are outweighed by those of little merit.  As for Paradis, her movie career to this date consisted of pouting in jeans and stripping off at will at sixteen in Noce Blanche and trying to seduce her father, Gérard Depardieu, in Elisa.  All one can say is, destroy all preconceptions, for though Bridge could be described as whimsical, it’s one of the most visually alluring, intoxicating films of the late nineties, an indescribably exotic love affair designed to, and succeeding in, dazzling the senses. 

            Adèle is a twenty-one year old no-hoper who has gone from one disastrous love affair to another since a very early age, having originally believed that “life starts when you make love, till then you’re nothing.”  In the next few years, we are told, she learns the true meaning of ‘nothing’, an endless tale of overlapping woe and miserable luck climaxing in her climbing over the rails of a Parisian bridge with the intention of jumping into the wintry Seine.  Until that is, along comes Gabor, a knife-thrower who trawls the bridges looking for wannabe suicides to act as assistant in his cabaret act.  Only after Adèle jumps and he jumps in after her to save her life does she agree to join his act, which results in an upturn of luck for both of them…but for how long?

            It must be said that the adulation of Vanessa Paradis in France has proved hard to recapture outside her native land, and I for one had doubted that, though her previous efforts showed that the camera did love her, she had the acting chops to not only mix it with such cine-royalty as Auteuil, but actually match him.  Fears are laid to rest in an astonishing opening sequence, where Paradis casually explains her tale of woe to what we originally presume to be a psychoanalyst, until we see an audience in the background that makes the entire sequence very disconcerting.  A disconcertment added to by Paradis’ almost nonplussed description of her unfortunate life.  She even looks dishevelled, her hair and attire worthy of any of life’s losers you care to name.  All of which makes her transformation to elfin goddess, as perceived in the eyes of Auteuil’s taciturn Gabor, so remarkable.  There’s a truly magical montage set to Benny Goodman where Auteuil takes Paradis through an extreme makeover, from which she emerges a singularly gorgeous, faintly androgynous yet natural object of worship.  A worship which stretches to both the director and the cinematographer, as there truly has been no more visually stunning black and white film in the last thirty years.  Some of Dreujou’s images are orgasmic, which brings us neatly to the extraordinary sequence where Auteuil, at Paradis’ bidding, throws knives at her under a railway arch.  Truly one of the most sublime, erotic (sexy is simply not sufficient to describe it) moments in cinema history.  I genuinely believe this is not only Leconte’s masterpiece, but one of the few films whose romanticism harks back to the glory days of Vigo and Renoir.  Most of all it gave Auteuil a role to relish and Paradis a chance buck the trend of non-acting pop princesses.  When Brenda Lee sings ‘I’m sorry’ as the closing credits roll, I guarantee you’ll be sorry that it’s over.