The film opens with an extended shot of a somewhat bedraggled Vanessa Paradis explaining to a woman off screen how her life has been a meaningless mess. The camera watch Paradis carry on for about five minutes, while tears begin to roll down her cheeks. The scene is never referred to again.
There is a cut to the same Paradis, still bedraggled, ready to jump off a night-time bridge in Paris. Just as she's about to take a nose dive, she's interrupted by an observer standing nearby, Pierre Auteuil. He doesn't rush to her aid or anything. He tells her that her run of bad luck is just a patch of rough road and, besides, she looks too good to waste. If she's so anxious to off herself, she can come and work for him. He's a knife thrower at a circus. The bridge is where he picks up girls so depressed that they're willing to take the job, regardless of the danger.
At this point I began to shudder all over with fear. Not fear for Paradis, but fear that I was in for a long, very French disquisition on the nature and meaning of life, all shot at night and in the rain.
But, lo, it's much better than that. In fact, it's pretty good. Briefly, Auteuil and Paradis make a splendid team and they rise to the top of their profession, if that's what it is. The tricks get more difficult. Auteuil throws his knives blind, and then at Paradis while she's rotating rapidly on one of those wheels that the simply dressed target always spins on. They're luck in every respect; they win big at Monte Carlo.
Now, your typical-standard American romance has them quit while their career is at its zenith. With their considerable stash, they buy a well-appointed beach bungalow, Auteuil puts himself through medical school and becomes the avuncular brain surgeon he's always wanted to be, and Paradis is ecstatic at finding herself a pregnant housewife with a room dedicated to her home sculpture and macramé.
Not here. Paradis is happy enough having knives thrown at her, but she and Auteuil never play doctor together. Instead, he's merely annoyed when her whimsy takes her to somebody else's bed. At one point she's about to make it with a contortionist, an interesting concept.
Just when the going is great, she finds "Mister Right" aboard a carnival boat. (I missed the original French for "Mister Right", but that's how the English subtitle came out.) She bids Auteuil a quiet good-bye and she and her new flame depart in a lifeboat. I haven't figured out how they got off the cruise ship in a lifeboat in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea either.
But no matter. The plot forges ahead. Mister Right deserts Paradis immediately in Istanbul. She drags herself around the city. It's never explained how she manages to support herself but it's easy enough to guess. Auteuil loses his uncanny skill with the knives and is reduced to selling them for "a few dates or a cucumber." He wind up dressed in tatters and about to jump off a bridge himself.
I never took the knives/luck business too seriously, figuring it must be a symbol for something else. By the end, I figured the something else was total commitment in a relationship, including outright expressions of love and including physical intercourse, both of which had been missing. The movie itself prompts this kind of conjecture. Vanessa Paradis hauls him into a dark tunnel, saying that they both know what they want. And what do they want? Another knife-throwing episode, while she writhes orgasmically and Auteuil sweats up a storm, both of them totally glandular.
I've always liked Auteuil. He has the face of Humphrey C. Earwicker, a kind of everyman. His nose is as big as his eyes. Paradis' body is flawless. And her face is almost inhumanly handsome except for her teeth. Lots of attractive women have gaps between their two upper incisors, but she has gaps between all of her teeth, so sizable that Auteuil, if he wanted, could throw knives through them.
I enjoyed the thing. It was in black and white, and free of those crazy tilted camera angles and wobbling shots and instantaneous editing that more recent films are susceptible to. Try it. You might like it.
There is a cut to the same Paradis, still bedraggled, ready to jump off a night-time bridge in Paris. Just as she's about to take a nose dive, she's interrupted by an observer standing nearby, Pierre Auteuil. He doesn't rush to her aid or anything. He tells her that her run of bad luck is just a patch of rough road and, besides, she looks too good to waste. If she's so anxious to off herself, she can come and work for him. He's a knife thrower at a circus. The bridge is where he picks up girls so depressed that they're willing to take the job, regardless of the danger.
At this point I began to shudder all over with fear. Not fear for Paradis, but fear that I was in for a long, very French disquisition on the nature and meaning of life, all shot at night and in the rain.
But, lo, it's much better than that. In fact, it's pretty good. Briefly, Auteuil and Paradis make a splendid team and they rise to the top of their profession, if that's what it is. The tricks get more difficult. Auteuil throws his knives blind, and then at Paradis while she's rotating rapidly on one of those wheels that the simply dressed target always spins on. They're luck in every respect; they win big at Monte Carlo.
Now, your typical-standard American romance has them quit while their career is at its zenith. With their considerable stash, they buy a well-appointed beach bungalow, Auteuil puts himself through medical school and becomes the avuncular brain surgeon he's always wanted to be, and Paradis is ecstatic at finding herself a pregnant housewife with a room dedicated to her home sculpture and macramé.
Not here. Paradis is happy enough having knives thrown at her, but she and Auteuil never play doctor together. Instead, he's merely annoyed when her whimsy takes her to somebody else's bed. At one point she's about to make it with a contortionist, an interesting concept.
Just when the going is great, she finds "Mister Right" aboard a carnival boat. (I missed the original French for "Mister Right", but that's how the English subtitle came out.) She bids Auteuil a quiet good-bye and she and her new flame depart in a lifeboat. I haven't figured out how they got off the cruise ship in a lifeboat in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea either.
But no matter. The plot forges ahead. Mister Right deserts Paradis immediately in Istanbul. She drags herself around the city. It's never explained how she manages to support herself but it's easy enough to guess. Auteuil loses his uncanny skill with the knives and is reduced to selling them for "a few dates or a cucumber." He wind up dressed in tatters and about to jump off a bridge himself.
I never took the knives/luck business too seriously, figuring it must be a symbol for something else. By the end, I figured the something else was total commitment in a relationship, including outright expressions of love and including physical intercourse, both of which had been missing. The movie itself prompts this kind of conjecture. Vanessa Paradis hauls him into a dark tunnel, saying that they both know what they want. And what do they want? Another knife-throwing episode, while she writhes orgasmically and Auteuil sweats up a storm, both of them totally glandular.
I've always liked Auteuil. He has the face of Humphrey C. Earwicker, a kind of everyman. His nose is as big as his eyes. Paradis' body is flawless. And her face is almost inhumanly handsome except for her teeth. Lots of attractive women have gaps between their two upper incisors, but she has gaps between all of her teeth, so sizable that Auteuil, if he wanted, could throw knives through them.
I enjoyed the thing. It was in black and white, and free of those crazy tilted camera angles and wobbling shots and instantaneous editing that more recent films are susceptible to. Try it. You might like it.