dir: Leos Carax
Continuing, after THE ELEMENT OF CRIME (see “past reviews”), with the subject of strange science fiction/crime films comes this mid-80s oddity from one of the current leading directors of French cinema. Recently, in the United States, much talk has been given to the French director Leos Carax. Various film centers are holding retrospectives. LOVERS ON THE BRIDGE is available on videotape. POLA X, his most recent film, has been given an U.S. release. However, his most interesting, his most ambiguous, and his best film remains THE NIGHT IS YOUNG which hopefully may now get the attention it deserves.
Descriptions of THE NIGHT IS YOUNG emphasize the science fiction elements or the crime scenario. True, the film does feature elements of both genres, but like LOVERS ON THE BRIDGE, it is first and foremost a love story about the confusion of love. From the central set up, an AIDS like disease that effects those who make love while not being in love, the film is concerned with the impossibility of love and happiness.
Marc, a hood (Michel Piccoli), is worried. He owes money to an American gangster, unusually characterized as an older woman. He is planning to rob the samples of the love disease from a laboratory and sell them. This will pay off his debt. However, every member of his team is committing suicide. At least, that is what the newspapers say. Marc thinks it might be murder. He enlists the help of Alex (Denis Lavant), the estranged son of one of the suicide victims, to perform the actual theft. That is merely the set up. The real concern of the movie is Alex and love. Alex spies his girlfriend Lise (Julie Delphy) leaving her house. She is fancy free and taking on his characteristics (the way he holds his cigarette for instance). Because of that, he must leave. The idea of Lise completely giving herself over to him scares Alex. He wants to be a new person. So, he excepts the job and plans to leave the country afterwards. On the way to see his partners, Alex sees a beautiful woman in the shadows as if a ghost. He follows her, but she seems to disappear. Later, he meets her again, Anna (Juliette Binoche), Marc’s much younger lover. Suddenly, Alex’s life revolves around nothing but Anna.
Alex longs to feel something. He is an amateur ventriloquist, but he lacks the dummy to express himself. He performs magic tricks for smiles and card games for cash, yet he lacks all traces of life. Toward the film’s end, he shoots a police officer. His former girlfriend says, “it’s over; that’s a life sentence.” Alex responds, “I know. That is why I did it.” There is something of a relief in knowing one cannot go back. That is Alex in this film. If LOVERS ON THE BRIDGE focuses on the homeless, THE NIGHT IS YOUNG zeroes in on the lifeless.
Hundreds have died from SMOB, the love disease. Even if only one partner does not truly love the other, the virus can strike. The virus’ biology is not important to Carax. Rather, it becomes a metaphor for the impossibility of love, which by the end, THE NIGHT IS YOUNG has completely dissected. The final scene (a person running blindly into out of focus) is a perfect ending. It strikes the chord of confusion, loneliness, and uncertainty that the film has so perfectly set up.