Film Details

Juliette Binoche and Denis Lavant star in Leos (Holy Motors) Carax’s most extravagant film, which cost 200 million francs 23 years ago! It’s a delirious valentine to l’amour fou in which an eye-patched art student (Binoche) who’s going blind hooks up with a fire-eating street acrobat and vagrant (Lavant) who lives on the Pont Neuf, Paris’ oldest bridge. These two wounded misfits begin a reckless, anarchic relationship that’s healing for them. Filmed against the backdrop of France’s 1989 bicentennial celebrations, this rhapsodic movie boasts an air of swooning, magical romanticism somewhere between Marcel Carné and Gene Kelly. Since there hasn’t been a showable copy of this movie in the U.S. for many years, don’t miss this rare chance to see it in a 35mm color print from France.

Subtitles. 124 min. Special thanks to Laura Pertuy and Delphine Selles, Cultural Services of the French Embassy, New York.