The Lovers on the Bridge (1991) User Reviews (63)

To Atlantic we'd like to go, too

[ruby_fff · 8/10 · 7 October 2000]

Of the four feature films from French writer-director Leos Carax, 1991 "Les Amants du Pont-Neuf" is the most hopeful and happy (mind you it's not the generic definition of 'happy' per se), still a story of love, an extraordinary loving relationship maturing through time and fateful instances as the film progresses. You might even agree afterall, that the whole journey of experience is rather satisfying. Director Leos Carax once again demonstrated a feast of his talented visual eye: things, faces, scenes, close-ups, aerial or simple wide shots, are composed, captured within the frames, graphically presented. He optimized the use of colors and movements: a fete of lights and fireworks celebrations, dazzling fire-eating shows, caressing shots of waves in motion of zigzagging speed boat and water-skiing.

Carax sure didn't water down any sentiments - he used bold strokes with no apology: his intro showed us the 'unpleasant' side of Paris, the dream city of Europe has homeless and sights of street people, too. Binoche, as always, dependably delivered an intense portrayal of this artist, Michele, on the verge of going blind (note the ending credits roll indicating the paintings were done by Juliette Binoche herself), and as the story unfolds, has a past mesmerizingly mysterious to Lavant's Alex character.

Again captured on film is Denis Lavant's legs a-moving within a frame running, dancing. Reminiscent of Truffaut and Jean-Pierre Leaud's Antoine filmic partnership - Lavant is Alex in three of Carax' endeavors: "Boy Meets Girl" 1984; "Bad Blood" 1986; and here in "The Lovers on the Bridge." (To see Denis Lavant away from his 'boyish' roles, try French director Claire Denis' 1999 "Beau Travail" - another intense delivery, and we actually get to see more of Lavant's solo legwork a-dancing.)

Yes, it's quite an ambitious film. Carax packed a lot of layers of emotions, spins and details, along with stunning visual angles and photographic magic in this one story. He is truly a passionate filmmaker and dramatic writer. Binoche and Lavant performed terrifically well together, and the third character, Klaus Michael Gruber as Hans the homeless senior also with a mysterious past, added accents with his performance. The sequence towards the end, first you get the telling of a joke with hearty laughter, then the fateful phrase of "ce soir c'est le soir", to the underwater sequence and what follows - Carax would not let up with any moment for you, the audience, to breathe after laughs and gasps. Choreographed magic? Yes. Go see it for yourself. Hang in there with the pair and you will not be disappointed. Have an open mind and you'll enjoy it.

"When I try to paint,this eye here bulges out of my head,like a snail."

[morrison-dylan-fan · 7/10 · 6 July 2016]

Reading up about the Cinéma du Look movement,I found out that along with Luc Besson and Jean-Jacques Beineix there was a third director,whose name I had not previously connected to Look.

Taking a look at Leos Carax's credits,I discovered that one of Carax's titles was the most expensive French film ever made! (at the time) Which led to me getting ready to join the lovers on the bridge.

View on the film:

Handling the biggest budget for a an offering from the movement,writer/director Leos Carax & cinematographer Jean-Yves Escoffier conjure up moments of pure Cinéma du Look magic blazing the sky and water in pulp colours as ultra-stylised tracking shots fully display the remarkable set.Focusing on the "alienated youth" of Cinéma du Look.

Carax gives the tittle brittle edges which open up youth hostels and also whips up the frenzied romance between Michèle and Alex in decadent whip-pans and razor sharp editing giving the movie an excellent,raw animated atmosphere.

Spending most of the film on the bridge,the screenplay by Carax casts a vast odyssey over Alex and Michèle relationship-a relationship which Carax subtly designs to complement each of their flaws,from Michèle gaining full sight at herself and the paintings,to Alex finding an inability to compromise his stay on the bridge.

Spanning a period of over 3 years,Carax captures the psychological power play between Michèle (played by a stunningly tough edged Juliette Binoche) and Alex, (played with a real Punk attitude by Denis Lavant)but struggles to build a sense on the passage of time giving a depth to the relationship, due to Caraz threading the romance in an uneven, disjointed manner,as the lovers meet on the Cinéma du Look bridge.

90's masterpiece

[MK_Movie_Reviews · 8/10 · 16 November 2021]

This move teaches us "Love doesn't need any money". This couple was living a life honest to themselves. The expression of uneasy feelings is one of the kind. After he gets out of jail, they are shinning in the night sky of Paris. The fireworks scene and music selection, everything was artistic. Congratulation! I gave it 8 stars. This movie became one of my favorite French movies.

Obsession and possession at the edge of darkness

[terraplane · 10/10 · 4 April 2007]

Obsession, addiction, violence and love. Sometimes all four at the same time. If nothing else, this movie is a complete roller-coaster ride through the emotions. It's hard to say whether it's really a love story. Is it love when you want to possess someone to the point where you would rather they go blind than go away? Is it love to want to drag someone down with you to bottom of your own degradation? Is it love when you would take someone's life because they wanted to go home? But then again, is it love when you allow all this to happen and still come back for more? I have my doubts.

This is really a story of obsession and possession between two people who find themselves marooned out on the edge of human existence. They find something like tenderness, something like love by holding on to each other like two children lost in the dark woods. But obsession is ultimately destructive and so it is here. Alex wants Michelle but never really shows any real tenderness. He has nothing to offer except cheap wine and an old overcoat. He is destructive, violent and child-like. The relationship between Alex and Michelle is quite impossible to comprehend sometimes. What this movie does have is passion. But this is real life passion. Real and raw. If you ever see real people like Alex and Michelle, and they do exist, you can see how they cling to each other, how they abuse each other, how they are possessed by their lifestyle, unable or unwilling to fight their way out of their humiliation. So in the end they just drag each further down, drowning in hopelessness.

But just as you think the story is going to end in tragedy...well you have to watch it for yourself.

The cinematography in this movie is breathtaking at times, but in a very unconventional way. It is beautiful to watch even though there is precious little that is attractive. Paris looks by turns both shiny and exciting and then dark, grey and filthy. Which, if you've been there, you will know is exactly how it is. There is not a single shot of any famous Parisian landmark either. Only the river Seine and the bridges around Pont Neuf are part of the landscape in this story.

It's really an ensemble piece for two characters; two characters caught up in obsession, possession and some kind of love story. The two lead actors, Juliette Binoche and Dennis Levant produce performances of real emotional power and subtlety. There is nothing coming out of Hollywood to match movies like this, nor are there many actors, if any, who could get close to performances like these. One day the Academy will begin to recognise that acting and movies is not just about box office returns and bestow their awards on movies like this.

A clever, if uncompromising juxtaposition, between social-realist despair and abstract romanticism

[ThreeSadTigers · 11 August 2008]

The film begins on a crossroads, where a blind Juliet Binoche fist encounters Denis Lavant's seemingly schizophrenic vagrant and their relationship begins. With this, even the most disinterested of viewers will be able to appreciate that the particular setting, much like the rest of the film, has a stark significance. Les Amants du Pont-Neuf (1991) was the third film from firebrand filmmaker Leos Carax, and one that shows an obvious attempt to build on the ground previously covered in his first two films, Boy Meets Girl (1984) and Mauvais Sang (1986), whilst simultaneously allowing himself the room for growth and creative development. Besides being a fairly successful combination of superfluous fantasy and biting social realism, the film remains something of an intriguing experiment into the juxtaposition of tone, the malleability of character and the cinematic use of architecture as a model for the plot; while simultaneously standing as an affecting and uncharacteristic romantic-drama in its own right.

Nonetheless, it is that bold use of design and the bolder integration of such concerns as expressed within the narrative itself that makes the film something to be experienced. The bridge here is more than just a mere setting; it is a symbol for our two protagonists. Most directors would have used this grand vision of design in all its historical splendour, to comment on the prosperous-nature of the country in an ironic fashion, and of the ample possibilities of its characters. Instead, Carax shows us a structure that is tired, worn and close to collapse. As the film progresses, note how the restoration of the Pont-Neuf comes to mirror the restoration and rehabilitation of the central duo. Their final union sees all three 'characters' cleansed and rejuvenated, whilst the crossroad is now open to allow their two very different worlds to collide. It is brilliantly captured by Carax, who once again uses the locations in a way that is entirely expressive; while all along showing a complete understanding of the relationship between the camera and the design that is truly unlike anything else demonstrated in his work, both before and since.

One of the most striking sequences here involves the lovers getting drunk and descending into childlike revelry, while a hundred years of cultural evolution is expressed through a densely layered soundtrack. We also have possibly the greatest use of fireworks in any film, as the duo steal a speedboat during the celebrations of the French Bicentennial; with the combination of music and movement, energy and spirit bringing to mind the night time walk that Alex takes in Boy Meets Girl (as Bowie plays on his over-sized headphones and kissing couples are treated with all the reverence of a talented street-musician) or the iconic "run down the street" scene from Mauvais Sang (with Bowie again scoring a defiant burst of unrequited love articulated as a wordless burst of physical expression). Bowie again features here, along with a character called Alex (again played by Lavant), but this certainly isn't a retread of the director's earlier achievements.

Many critics have continually argued that the combination of mental illness and skid-row misery with declarations of love and happiness against scenes of deliberate, fantastical exaggeration is all decidedly problematic in tone. Again, these same accusations have been levelled against everything from New York, New York (1977) to The Moon in the Gutter (1983), with the natural shock of the harsh contrast between content and form no doubt jarring the audience out of their usual, expected comfort zones. It is almost unheard of in the more recognisable cinema of Hollywood to expect a romantic drama to open with a scene set in a homeless shelter, where wizened, naked men stand prostrate under shower heads, or moments of unrequited love and ennui are expressed in bursts of unprovoked violence and shocking brutality. Naturally, the film was a spectacular failure on release and soured Carax's interest in film indefinitely (only one film in the subsequent seventeen years); but for me, the legacy of Les Amants du Pont-Neuf, as both an experience and a creative excess, is more potent now than it ever was before.

Although you could certainly argue that Les Amants is a somewhat flawed work in comparison to the director's smaller projects, most notably, the controversial POLA X (1999), it remains so simply as a result of aiming too high. However, regardless of such slight limitations, it is what cinema should be; an expression, of ideas and emotions that are inventive, funny, shocking, beautiful, gritty and continually enigmatic, and all tied to the director's repeated allusions to the work of Jean Luc Godard, R.W. Fassbinder, Scorsese and Jean Vigo. Regardless of its reputation as a costly flop or a work of pure self-indulgence, Les Amants du Pont-Neuf remains a film unlike any other; an epic love story cast against a backdrop of depression and desperation and the same kind of bold, cinematic evocations that Carax's work is celebrated for.

This is what cinema is all about!

[yossarian100 · 10/10 · 20 February 2004]

The Lovers on the Bridge boldly reminded me this is what cinema is all about. Strong performances, exceptional cinematography, and wonderfully creative direction highlight this truly "must see" movie. There are many scenes in this film which actually took my breath away and some of the music did the same. The story and characters are disturbingly brutal but that is offset by some amazing imagery. My highest recommendation!

I can't believe I watched the whole thing

[bandw · 6/10 · 24 August 2007]

I can guarantee this is not for all tastes, since it is not for my taste. The opening ten minutes are intensely depressing and I found that they set the predominant mood. That in itself is no reason to downgrade this film, but trying to resolve the frequent fluctuations between brutal realism and unbelievable fantasy ultimately wore me out.

Alex and Michele are homeless and camping out on the Pont-Neuf while it is under repair. Michele is going blind and Alex is an alcoholic with a drug problem on the side - certainly a setup that will challenge all but the persistent to bug out. We see rubble on the bridge, but never any indication of there being active renovation going on. This is in keeping with there being almost nobody on the streets of Paris, or in the subways. Maybe the intent of this population void is to focus our attention on the protagonists, but it lent an unreal air to the proceedings for me. And just when we are willing to cut the film some slack in this area we are brought back to harsh realities.

Indeed there are some wonderfully filmed scenes like Michele water-skiing on the Seine at night with Alex manning a speed boat. But what is to be made of that? Prior to this scene we see that Michele is weak and hardly able to walk. Most scenes overstay their welcome. When Michele takes to drugging the drinks of restaurant customers in order to put them to sleep so she can pick their pockets we are saturated with scenes of about a dozen people as they *slowly* succumb to the drug. And is that mode of theft really practical? And so on.

What are we to take away from this film? That homeless people desire love and acceptance just like anybody else? That the homeless have their reasons for being as they are? That love can exist among the ruins? That a few dazzling scenes will keep people watching? That Juliette Binoche fans will put up with a lot just to see her in a movie?

There were no new insights for me here.

Carax is the most interesting storyteller I've come across in a while-

[rnadiv · 10/10 · 5 March 2005]

There's a lot to say here about the performances of Juliette Binoche and Denis Lavant. Lavant is always good in Carax's films; here he is simply outstanding. And seeing Binoche play a character with dimension, for once, is a pleasure. The real surprise is Klaus-Michael Gruber whose Hans is perhaps the most believable aspect of the film.

But what draws me to this film--tied for best of what I've seen Carax do, along with "Mauvais Sang"--is the photography, sound and editing. Carax understands the use of image in narrative, and how to bring discordant scenes together to provide the sense of desperation needed to make this love story, so far removed from mainstream film romance, believable and engaging. From the opening soundtrack to the climactic scenes given over by his masterful use of jump cuts, Carax outdoes others, some long-established, who came late on the scene with these tools (Bertolucci; Soderbergh). What Carax started craft-wise with "Boy Meets Girl" he perfect in "Les Amants du Pont Neuf."

If Lavant, Binoche and Gruber are not reason enough to rent this film, then Carax's pictorial ideas, carried through with his incredible sense of craft, should more than suffice. Sad that the film has suffered so quietly without major recognition, when, clearly, others have borrowed from it so willingly.

A passionate and very cinematic love story

[Red-Barracuda · 7/10 · 20 November 2016]

I got the chance to see this film for the second time after a very kind fellow IMDb user sent me a copy of it and I must say that my opinion of it has improved with the re-watch. I guess once you accept what it is and what it isn't, it becomes much easier to appreciate. It seems to have been one of those films whose making-of story was perhaps more dramatic than the film itself. It took three years to make and went three times over budget. In fact, it was the most expensive French film of its day which was caused in a large part because the delays in production meant that the period in which the film-makers were allowed to film on the Pont-Neuf ran out, leading to the construction of a huge replica bridge and surrounding buildings to exactly mimic its location in the middle of Paris. When it was released it received lots of critical acclaim but little interest from the general public and it bombed at the box office. This led to its director Leos Carax to make far fewer films (to date, he has directed a mere two others in the intervening 25 years). It reminded me a little of the Francis Ford Coppola film One from the Heart (1981) which was also a romance told in a highly expressive and expensive manner. Funnily enough, that film was also a box office disaster. It seems like very personal romantic-dramas are perhaps more sensibly told in a smaller scale. Nevertheless, for me, this very bold film is Carax best film and the sheer craziness of the production only adds to its overall impact. Set in the middle of Paris the action occurs on the Pont-Neuf bridge which is closed for renovation work, allowing for some homeless people to take up residence on it, this includes two young people who begin a love affair; one an alcoholic street performer, the other an artist who is going blind.

This is one of the last films of the cinéma du look movement and is the third film of one of its chief proponents, Carax. As such it showcases his passionate style and with its tale of young love against the odds, was a typical subject from him. While it is a very cinematic movie, the drama works quite well due to a couple of committed performances from Denis Lavant and Juliette Binoche. They are playing very unglamorous characters indeed, which may account for the film being a bit of a hard sell commercially. They are not especially likable either, with Lavant's character in particular being fairly reprehensible in many ways, his obsession with Binoche leads to some highly selfish actions, such as preferring his lover to go blind than to risk the possibility of her leaving him and inadvertently killing a man as part of his quest to achieve this. But like others in the cinéma du look this is a film which places style above substance ultimately. It benefits from good cinematography and great sound design – you really feel like you can feel Paris in this film (all the more impressive when you realise much of it is a giant model!). Perhaps though it is best remembered for some notable set-pieces though. The most famous being the sequence on Bastille Day where the lovers dance across the bridge while fireworks go off, sound-tracked to an amalgam of hip-hop, dance and classical music. This set-piece is followed up with another memorable scene where the lovers water-ski down the Seine. While the film ends with a nod to the influential L'Atlante (1934) with the central couple boarding a barge, and heading out to the sea. Ultimately, in order to fully appreciate this film, you need to surrender yourself to its look and feel and don't concern yourself very much with sense or realism. If you can do that, then there is much to appreciate in this unusual over-the-top romance.

A masterpiece.

[MOscarbradley · 10/10 · 8 August 2019]

Watching "Les Amants Du Pont-Neuf" I kept telling myself that only the French could have made it and that the ghosts of Prevert and Carne and especially Vigo were hovering above that famous bridge. Alex and Michele are as much the children of paradise as were Garance or Baptiste. They are tramps living on the streets of Paris or more precisely on the now derelict Pont-Neuf bridge, (it's being renovated), and to someone who isn't French their love affair is very Gallic. No ordinary tramps, he is a fire-eating acrobat and she is a painter who is going blind and since they are played by the remarkable Denis Lavant and Juliette Binoche you know their story will be as grand as it may be tragic.

This was only Leos Carax's third film but it confirmed him as one of the best directors working in movies and not just in France. It's a visually bold, near epic picture and at the time of its release was not considered a success; it was thought of as old-fashioned. Now, of course, it's thought of as the masterpiece it clearly is but while it confirmed Carax's artistry it could just as easily have ended his career. It was eight years until his next feature and since then he's only made one other film by himself, the brilliant "Holy Motors", (he is credited as one of the three directors of "Tokyo").

It hardly matters, of course, that "Les Amants Du Pont-Neuf" is fanciful and unrealistic, a paean of praise to cinema and not to life, (this is really "L'Atalante" in just another guise), but then isn't that why we go to the cinema in the first place? Let us hope it's not too long before Carax is enchanting us once again with his magic. We, and the cinema, need him.

Stunningly realised, emotionally empty

[howie73 · 6/10 · 29 May 2005]

This is quite a stunning achievement in terms of visuals and art direction but on an emotional levels it feels empty and superficial.

Employing the tenets of the cinema du look aesthetic, director Leos Carax has concocted an urban fairy tale without the dashing prince. Set on and around the Pont nNeuf in Paris, it tells the story of two lovestruck and alienated people who live as vagabonds yet the bridge acts as their symbolic anchoring point. Both have mysterious, dark pasts but Carax is more interested in their visual engagement with the story rather than their emotional core.

There are many dazzling set-pieces and spectacular scenes that are among the most cinematic ever filmed, but it leaves you feeling empty. Denis Lavant and Juliette Binoche, of course, give stunning performances, but this films feel more experimental than fully realised. It's definitely one of the most visually stunning films anyone is likely to see.

file under: breathtaking

[noangelstephie · 10/10 · 3 January 2001]

I found this movie by serendipity at Blockbuster, while I was searching for another Juliette Binoche title. I had to turn it off after an hour, because I was so overwhelmed. I finished it later of course, and was uplifted. The cinematography was breathtaking. It was also one of the most original films I've ever seen. Three homeless people live on a bridge, including an old man, a fire-breathing street performer, and an artist who is, ironically, going blind (i believe by macular degeneration). I don't want to spoil any of the action, but watch for an amazing scene in a subway hallway. And the two lovers, who seem so unlikely to get together at the beginning, bond convincingly throughout the film. Also, watch for two scenes were later recycled for movies which won best picture. Juliet Binoche and the old man visit a museum so she can look at a painting by candlelight (a la' The English Patient) and a scene ripped off for Titanic. It's great, but don't expect to just relax while watching it--it's a thinker's movie.

Two losers get their lives back together on the streets of Paris

[cwpnewpaltz · 7/10 · 25 June 2000]

Usually I'm a sucker for French films, but this one left me as cold as a December night on the streets of Paris. Like the bridge, which serves as allegory, the two "lovers?" ( probably better termed co-dependents in an abusive relationship) have to be nearly destroyed before they can be rebuilt. Possessive, selfish, self-destructive, they lead each other into the abyss until the woman finds redemption through traditional values and the man finds redemption through prison. Then they are finally ready to find a life together. Fortunately, society picked them up in the nick of time, and they didn't end up on a slab in the city morgue. Not a pretty story. Not a love story. But an interesting story.

One of biggest waste of time I've seen for ages

[geoff-345 · 1/10 · 14 November 2010]

This "romantic" film was just so depressing and so unrealistic - it made it impossible for me to feel any sympathy or empathy for the 2 main characters and their desperate and desolate lives. I kept watching in the vain hope I'd find some redeeming feature but failed miserably. One has to have a touch of masochism to sit through this 2 hour endurance course!

I came away with nothing that enriched my heart or mind in any way. It was just depressing watching these characters on their self-destructive binge! How love could sprout or thrive under such conditions and with such false motives is beyond me. One could only watch it in a detached way as it was just impossible to understand or identify with the main characters. Avoid it like the plague!

A bold, stylistic love story

[mattl · 28 June 1999]

This French film is actually one of the best films of the decade. Unfortunately it was hampered by budget problems and never made its money back. So it got this bad reputation. Of course, the subject matter dealing with an intense love story between two homeless people might be a subject some don't care to see. It stars Juliette Binoche (before she was much known in the U.S.) as a one-eyed homeless artist who falls in love with a disturbed street punk. They spend their days and nights on a bridge that's been closed for renovation.The film builds a lot of tension around the madness of the love affair. Binoche's character is going blind and she needs help but the street punk is so obsessed with her he won't let her be go. Stylistically it is very flamboyant and bold especially in it's editing and shot selections. And that may be why some don't like it. The love story too is hard to believe but most love stories rely on a leap of faith so that's nothing new. Like any great film it takes narrative and stylistic chances but if you're a cineaste you'll most likely enjoy it.

Style over substance...

[bootboyd · 8/10 · 26 February 2001]

...but what style! The most expensive French film ever made when it came out, this film features some spectacular set-pieces, particularly the French bi-centennial celebrations that provide a backdrop. It has its weaknesses, but when I saw this in the cinema I was blown away. Denis Lavant puts in a particularly strong performance as Alex, the depressive and tender down-and-out obsessed with Binoche's Michele. Watch it, even if you find nothing else in it, the visuals are astonishing.

One of the most poetic and beautiful films.

[bebini · 10/10 · 15 May 1999]

I saw this masterpiece 7 years ago. I was shocked by its perfectionism. Since then I 've changed the way I see films.

This movie shows all the differences between a European and an American movie.

I want to thank everyone who worked on this movie for offering me an opportunity to define some things about good and bad cinema.

The Lovers On The Bridge (Leos Carax, 1991) **1/2

[Bunuel1976 · 6/10 · 30 March 2006]

Being basically the story of a romance among tramps, this sentimental and drawn-out melodrama is filled with repellent detail (these characters certainly don't emanate from the world of Chaplin or Rene' Clair!) but is held firmly enough together by good performances by the three main actors (particularly Juliette Binoche, who is quite moving as the sketch artist slowly going blind) and the odd moment of inspiration: the lovers walking on the ledge of the bridge against the backdrop of a fireworks display; their putting to sleep the clientele of a café by means of the narcotic previously used by the insomniac boy; the elderly tramp – a sort of father-figure to the boy but who also has an inexplicable aversion to the girl – reminiscing about his manic-depressive wife and the former job he had as the watchman of various cultural sites; the lovers running naked by the sea silhouetted against the horizon (and with the boy's erect penis receiving undue attention!); the boy setting on fire a bunch of posters of the missing girl fixed on the walls of an underground station.

wild, romantic, original, pretentious-in-a-good-way, and joyful film-making

[Quinoa1984 · 10/10 · 27 November 2008]

There are moments and scenes in Lovers on the Bridge that waver between being straightforward in their realism and the given grittiness of living life on the streets homeless and of those sudden romantic bursts that are also a given if you're French and wanting to show how wonderful and horrible it can be in a strange situation. There are many I could point to, but there's also a suddenness to the work, moments that pop out and make the viewer put into perspective the tragic nature of this story and the characters. There's an unpredictability, but not without logic or something in line with life in this situation and place.

One such moment that few reviewers may talk about involves the character of Hans and his death. Throughout the film he's been more than wary of the presence of half-blind Michelle (Binoche) who has also fallen in (possible) love with Alex (Lavant) the drunken/druggie fire-breather, and for a while we as the audience see him as a rather ugly being. But then he opens up to Michelle- how he came to be on this bridge without a job, or without his wife and the death of his child- and he offers her to take her to a museum, which he has a key for from his job as a guard, to see a painting as close to the surface as possible late at night. He's actually quite a touching character gradually, still grumpy and grisly but with a conscience and feeling for Michelle's plight... Then as he walks down a set of stairs and comes to the side of the riverbank he slips and falls and dies.

In any other hands this could become high melodrama, a director pulling out all the stops to make this a really significant event for these character Michelle and Alex. But just as soon as he was there, he's gone, and I was overwhelmed for a moment by pure anguish at this man's demise. There's other moments like that as well in Carax's film, where he substitutes stark poetry- or something truly alive and fast and ebullient poetry with his camera and wonderful, expensive set (some of the time)- and balances so satisfyingly between the grime and clutter of this little enclave on the bridge and the torrid love between two people who are together for various reasons, some known well and some intimated by just the slightest moves (or lack thereof). With some minor exceptions like the very end, which leads to some curious and surreal ambiguity, it's a sensational ride.

We're taken along on the story of Alex, a fire-breather as his only trade and with hobbies of booze and drugs in order to sleep, and Michelle, a painter who has nowhere to go except to old lovers she'd rather not see, or can't see because of flailing eyesight (or, if she does, bad things happen- or appear to happen, again the ambiguity). They become very close, maybe too close for the extremely lonely and possibly brain damaged Alex, and pull off a money making scheme, which ends with a moment of a selfish act, as well as have nights of debauchery and excitement. The most notable of the latter, probably of the best kinds of exuberant, crazy type scenes in any motion picture, is when Alex and Michelle, smashed to hell, run and jump and dance to a giant fireworks display, with Carax pumping up Iggy Pop and Blue Danube Waltz music, and finishing off with a water-skiing down the river. This is one of those sequences I probably will never forget, not just for the power of the film-making but for the feeling one has for the characters at that moment of time in the movie: sublime, momentary escapism.

Things end up getting very dark for the characters, not least of which for Alex who goes on a rampage tearing down posters looking for Michelle for an eye-operation (this is one of those scenes that goes between reality and fantasy that's jarring: it verges on pretension, but I actually didn't mind it for how wrapped up one becomes in the plight of Alex with "his" Michelle), and the ending finds the two years later, changed only on the surface. All the old wounds are there, and how they'll exactly end up is difficult to say. But what is clear for Carax, after going through a story that features real homeless people in shelters (this footage shot like a documentary, plunging us so far into this world we forget most of the time the bridge is a set), of numerous fights and cries and hugs and laughs and fights between the two would-be/may-be lovebirds, that what would be cynical in any other hands is treated as bittersweet humanism. Carax cares for these characters deeply, even the troubled Alex, and it's important to understand that in their downfall. A+

Homeless in Paris

[jotix100 · 7/10 · 7 April 2006]

Alex, a young homeless man, is seen as the film begins walking in a drug induced state in the middle of an avenue in Paris; it's a miracle he is not killed!. When he falls, a car almost goes over him, resulting in an ankle fracture. Alex finds Michele, another homeless woman, sleeping in his spot when he returns to the oldest bride in Paris, Pont Neuf, which is being repaired.

Thus, the bridge acts as a refuge for Alex, and Hans, another poor man who has given up on life, or so it seems. Hans supplies Alex with drugs, and the new arrival is a threat, as far as he can see. Alex is taken with the mysterious Michele, who has an eye patch and appears to be losing her vision, something we are never told what caused it.

Michele is a girl that comes from privilege, judging by a letter Alex finds. It's clear to see the hold the young woman has on the homeless man, and he falls head over heels with her. The happiness, alas, is short lived. Alex has discovered a poster in the metro asking about Michele's whereabouts. In it, a pending operation that will save her eye is mentioned. Alex, who doesn't want to lose her, starts a series of fires that has a tragic consequence.

Suffice it to say that the two lovers are reunited after they both seem to have dealt with their problems and we watch them sailing the Seine toward what appears will be a happier life.

Leos Carax got excellent performances out of the two leads. Juliette Binoche makes an enigmatic Michele and Dennis Lavant is convincing as Alex. Klaus Michael Gruber is seen as Hans.

The film could have improved with badly needed editing. Jean Yves Escoffier, the cinematographer captures the magnificent fireworks from the celebration of Bastille Day in Paris. The music by David Bowie, Dimitri Shostakovich and Benjamin Britten is heard in the background.

A dark fabulous fantasy....

[mjblake · 10/10 · 21 April 1999]

The most expensive movie ever made in France when it first came out, this is a marvellous dark fantasy. The whole production is a wonderful cinematic experience. It was most certainly designed for the biggest possible screen. It is a fantasy, never letting you the viewer forget that it is a film, and not reality. Hence some rather unnatural dialogue and obviously-staged scenes. It's a cinematic spectacle.....

At the same time, it is a dark tale of obsessive love, as Alex (Denis Lavant) first falls for, then comes to depend upon, his fellow dweller (Juliette Binoche) on/under the eponymous bridge. When it appears that she may get the opportunity to leave him, we see how selfish his love is and how we so often destroy that which we most cherish.

All the ideas and themes are blasted at the viewer with as much subtlety as the Bastille Day fireworks which signal one climactic moment. But on a big screen, it works, honest. This is one of about three films I've ever seen which received an ovation at the finish - and this from a typically reticent British audience....

A daring movie

[philip_vanderveken · 7/10 · 8 August 2005]

On my eternal quest for the not so average movie, different from the usual Hollywood blockbuster, I came along this "Les amants du Pont-Neuf" or "The Lovers on the Bridge". I must say that I already liked the movie, just by reading the title and that has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that this is a romantic movie, situated in Paris. On the contrary, normally I try to stay as far away as I can from all romantic movies situated in that city, because they never show Paris the way it really is and if I want some touristic information on Paris for young couples in love, I'll check one of my travelers guides. No, what probably made me decide to watch this movie was that the title reminded me of one of my favorites "Los Amantes del Círculo Polar" or in English "The Lovers from the Arctic Circle". Add to this that Juliette Binoche, one of my favorite French actresses, played a leading role in it and you know why I didn't hesitate to watch it.

On the Pont Neuf in Paris, which has been closed for repairs, live two vagrants. When one day they find a third person staying there, the oldest one of the two, Hans, immediately tries to chase her away. But Alex, the youngest of the two, likes the young Michèle and allows her to stay for the night. Alex is a street artist who is addicted to alcohol and sedatives, Hans started to live on the streets when his wife started drinking and ultimately drunk herself to death after their child died and Michèle fled to a live on the streets after a failed relationship and because of a disease which can't be cured and which is slowly turning her blind. Together they try to make the best of their lives and when Michèle's eyesight gets worse, she more and more starts to depend on Alex. He doesn't mind about that because he is deeply in love with her, but when Alex finds a lot of posters in the streets, asking for information about Michèle because a cure for her disease might have been found, he fears that he will lose her if he doesn't do anything about it. Out of pure desperation he does something incredibly stupid which sends him to prison for a couple of years...

If you expect to see some nice romantic images of Paris, then this will be a very disappointing movie. Even though it sometimes shows Paris from a prettier view point (the fireworks show on the 14th of July, the French National Holiday, for instance is magnificent), the entire movie only shows the hard reality of the life on the streets. I really don't think that such a story belongs in the perfect image that so many people have of the City of Light, but even though there is nothing romantic about live on the streets, it's nice to see how these two people have found each other. But on the other hand I must also say that even to this relationship there is a downside. You can't possibly speak of real love or romance when you see how selfish and greedy the reaction of Alex is, when he finds out that he might lose her.

The acting in this movie is really good. Juliette Binoche proves that she can be as outstanding and beautiful as a vagrant as in a more glamorous role. In my opinion she was the best in this movie, although I must admit that Denis Lavant and Klaus-Michael Grüber did a nice job as well. Especially Grüber was a nice surprise. The man is a complete stranger to me and according to this website hasn't got much experience, but he sure did a good job in this movie.

All in all this is a very interesting movie, because it is a romantic movie and yet it isn't. As it takes its viewers on a roller-coaster ride between happiness, disgust, love, hate, beauty and ugliness, this certainly isn't a movie like the average sugar sweet nonsense that we are used to get from Hollywood.. There really aren't many movies that dare to be so different and that's why I would like to reward this daring concept with a rating in between 7/10 and 7.5/10.

a superb film about love in garbage

[dromasca · 10/10 · 11 April 2019]

I hope that you'll excuse my enthusiasm. It is quite rare to fall on a film that I consider it deserving a 10/10 rating on IMDB. I am a demanding cinema fan, and the maximum rating is reserved on my scale to films that are exciting, innovative, remarkable (not necessarily impeccable) from an artistic point of view and whose viewing have captivated or moved me or both. It is the case of 'Les amants du Pont-Neuf', the superb film directed by Leos Carax released in 1991.

The film can be described as a love story in the world of the homeless Parisians. I happen to know well the place most of the action takes place, the Pont-Neuf bridge, located in the center of Paris, near one of the hotels where I chose to stay when in the City of Lights. The filming of 'Les amants du Pont-Neuf' has its own story. Carax used for part of the time for shooting the real bridge which was under renovation in 1989, the year when France celebrated the 200th anniversary of the fall of the Bastille. The two heroes are an alcoholic tramp (Denis Lavant, Carax's favorite actor) and a young painter touched by a disease that gradually destroys her eyesight (Juliette Binoche), running away to escape desperation because of her illness and an unfortunate love story. The two do not know too well to communicate, it starts with a drop of compassion that develops in a relationship. To survive they steal in different ways when they are not drunk or consuming other substances. Still, nothing stands in the way of the love story between them, neither their personal misfortunes, nor the misery of the homeless life they are forced or maybe they choose to live, not the police raids or the antipathy of an older homeless who declares himself the 'owner' of the bridge under repairs. It is only when things could begin to straighten out that their love story will be in jeopardy. There are many extreme situations and bizarre or out-of-norm solutions, but nothing to bother either the heroes or the viewers, as the love story is compelling and captivates the attention and emotions of the audience. Love and beauty can blossom anywhere, including in garbage and in evil environments, we know it since Baudelaire.

Carax's cinematic style in this film (and in a few more of his films) belongs to a trend called 'Cinema du look', popular in the '80s, which can be described as a post-Nouvelle Vague reaction. The characters are chosen with predilection from the outskirts of society, they are vagabonds, prostitutes, walking failures or criminals, while the films are shot in the aesthetic style reserved for films describing the more fortunate social classes (Claude Lelouch's films for example). The results are spectacular in this film, in which the exuberance of the official celebrations resonates with the lovers' emotions, where the Paris of garbage and poverty seems to harmonize with the tourist's Paris. Denis Lavant and Juliette Binoche create two of the best roles of their careers, they are sincere, vulnerable, and authentic as the two lovers hit by the misfortunes of life, who find mutual support in each other avoiding the fall in abyss. I strongly recommend this movie, I personally loved it enormously. You will get as a bonus a scene that I believe inspired James Cameron in Titanic. I'm not saying more, because I hope that you will look for this movie and see it, if you have not done it yet.

Binoche and Lavant are great, but the movie is terrible

[Red-125 · 6/10 · 30 June 2020]

The French movie Les amants du Pont-Neuf (1991) was shown in the U.S. with the (obviously) mistranslated title The Lovers on the Bridge. (Apparently American audiences couldn't relate to the Pont-Neuf in Paris.) The film was written and directed by Leos Carax.

Juliette Binoche portrays Michèle Stalens, a young artist who is going blind. She ends up living as a homeless person on the Pont-Neuf. She meets Alex, also homeless, and they become lovers. Alex is portrayed by Denis Lavant, Hans is Alex's friend, who provides him with drugs. He's played by Klaus-Michael Grüber.

The acting is great, but the film is dreadful. Michele's father--the colonel--puts up advertisements all over Paris trying to inform people that there's a new operation available that will save his daughter's vision. Alex tries to burn them all. He sets fire to about 20 posters in a Metro station, but nobody notices. Apparently he wants Michele to go blind, so he can protect and guide her. Now if that isn't love, what is?

Setting fires happens to kill a man, but Alex didn't mean to kill him, so he responds by shooting himself in the hand. Then he's arrested. When he gets out of prison, he and Michele reunite. (She's had the surgery, so now she's beautiful again.)

Apparently, they are going to live happily ever after.

This movie was OK on DVD, although the fireworks would look better on a large screen. Also, the large screen would make it even more impressive to watch a stunt person water ski the length of the Seine.

A friend suggested that I should give the acting a 10, and the movie a 2, so by average it should be a 6. Works for me.

Worst film of the decade

[Mike S. · 1/10 · 4 February 1999]

Is this the worst film of all time ? That was the question I was pondering the other day after watching it for a second time (sheer masochism).

Well, perhaps not of all time. But I can think of few other films which aim so high and miss so pathetically. There is not a single truthful emotion in this mess, the acting is mannered and posturing and the script is utterly banal.

Those poseurs who thought "Betty Blue" was the ne plus ultra of modern culture will probably love this one as well. Me ? I'm off to watch something with more insight. Like "Con Air".