French filmmaker Leos Carax began his career vibrating in perfect intellectual sympathy with the French cineast community. Later works had bumpier receptions, but this Nouvelle Vague besotted debut from a former film critic (what else?) has a great glossy black & white look, the cool of alienated youth, and the empty vessel prêt-à-porter æsthetic to encourage read-what-you-want-into-it Pop sensibility. Plus, it’s fun! Carax’s regular alter-ego Denis Lavant is the height-challenged feral pup intellectual, spending his last day in Paris before Army service. In a quandary on whether BREATHLESS or JULES & JIM holds the greater influence, Carax has Lavant fight with his BFF over a girl (he’d rather debate an affair than consummate it) before finding a more interesting/more troubled object of desire at a posh party he wasn’t really invited to. It’s enough to make a young man miss the last train to oblivion. Hard not to be swept along by Carax’s playful visual chic while pondering that when it comes to philosophic Parisian discussions, the longueurs the better doesn’t hold.
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: In case you wondered, BOY MEETS GIRL is the French title. Here’s the classic Hollywood story on the cliché. Big-time movie producer has the same dream night-after-night. It’s the best idea he’s ever had, if only he could remember it when he woke up. Hoping to capture it, he puts pen & paper on the bedside table so that the next time the dream comes, he’ll get it down before he forgets. Next morning he wakes up and looks to see if he wrote something down while half asleep in the middle of the night. Sure enough he did! The great idea he dreamt over and over again? ‘Boy Meets Girl.’
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