2 by Carax: Mauvais Sang (1986) and Les Amants du Pont-Neuf (1991)

My previous experience of Mauvais Sang was that, though I found every other film of Carax's to be at the very least extremely interesting, this film was one of the most deeply irritiating I have ever seen! I don't find it so any more, though it certainly hasn't become one of my favourites. (It should be said that the transfer on the Artificial Eye DVD looks stunning, greatly superior to the DVD of Les Amants du Pont-Neuf that I have.) What is most striking, watching these two films in close proximity, are the parallels between them; they almost seem like two versions of the same thing. In both, Denis Lavant and Juliette Binoche are at the heart of a narrative of love, death and jealousy, where physical conditions (the diminishment of capacity or its overloading) serve highly metaphorical – even allegorical – functions. Both tales set individuals against sweeping backdrops that are mostly only alluded to (the passing of Halley's Comet in Mauvais Sang; the bicenenary of 1789 in Les Amants). The progress of these concrete abstractions takes precedence over conventional narrative per se. In the later film, however, there are coherently constructed narrative threads throughout, even when they stretch plausibility to the extent that the film becomes impressionist, such as when Michelle's poster appears on every surface Alex passes. The film is satisfying on multiple levels: narrative, metaphorical, structural. In Mauvais Sang, however, the opening structure of noirish thriller is handled almost entirely abstractly. It is abandoned so completely for much of the film – there is so little sense of tension – that it is a surprise whenever it returns. This probably accounts for my initial irritation; not expecting the film to be any kind of crime drama helps on accomodate oneself to it. (Both films have a kind of prelude after which Lavant and Binoche enter into their "world" together, largely – but not entirely – cut off from surrounding realities. But in Mauvais Sang this prelude promises a genre that the film entirely unfulfils, while in Les Amants it deals with the world of the down-and-outs in Paris and their treatment by the authorities and so, though we never quite return there – Alex's arrest at the end draws him into the more standard world of the police – it sets up a number of narrative and thematic issues very effectively.) Mauvais Sang may have the more arresting set-pieces (such as Alex's run along the street to the soundtrack of Bowie, and his magic tricks; some of the set-pieces in the later film seem like less effective re-runs of these), but Les Amants seems to me the more consistently engaging work of the two, in no small part because of Binoche, who is quite remarkable. Despite the various extremities she has to go to she avoids caricature entirely. Her mannerisms only return at the end of the film, as it sets itself up for the happy ending that its logic does not really lead towards. (I believe Carax's initial intention was to have a tragic ending.) If one wanted to distill a notion of the "Caraxian", these two films would be excellent tools with which to do so; but if I were to be forced to never see two of his films again, I think these two would very likely be the ones I would choose.