Pola X (1999)

With previous films including Mauvais Sang and The Lovers on the Bridge, Leos Carax's characters were constantly on the brink of madness, or at least a disturbing single-mindedness. This is a trend that Carax continues and expands with Pola X. In this adaptation of Herman Melville's Pierre, or The Ambiguities, Carax depicts characters whose madness is palpable as their behavior becomes more and more erratic. Main character Pierre, a successful writer who lives in a mansion on a rambling estate with his perhaps too adoring mother, abandons his family and loving girlfriend Lucie in order to strike out on his own with Isabelle, a foreign vagrant who claims to be his sister. Things take a dark turn quickly as his sister's odd companions get him in trouble with everyone he meets and his relationship with Isabelle becomes sexual. At the same time, he has trouble with his writing and becomes intimately involved with an unexplained cult. Eventually it becomes clear that he has left his old life because he felt that his way of life was not true enough, though ironically he is repeatedly accused of being an impostor in his new life, something that never happened before he set out trying to embody the truth. Later on, things take a turn for the darkly comic as Pierre introduces Lucie to Isabelle as his cousin in order to allay her suspicion about his relationship with her—given their odd relationship, she logically ought to be just as worried about his attraction to a female with a family connection to him. After this point, however, all logic is abandoned as Pierre and Isabelle become more and more unhinged. The problem with Pola X isn't just that it's generally inexplicable if not altogether incomprehensible because of rushed and underdeveloped characters and events, it's that Carax largely abandons the visual style he put to such great use in his earlier films, opting instead for a drab aesthetic that emphasizes the sordid misery of the characters' surroundings. Even the few unusual shots he employs here seem like half- hearted rehashes of better scenes in his previous films. Still, even lesser Carax is of some interest.

Pretentious claptrap, updating Herman Melville (!), about a young man's vaguely incestuous relationship with his aristocratic mother getting transferred to his long-lost sister who has been raised by gypsies. Or something like that – not that anyone really cares to unravel its multi-layered plot decked out with pornographic sex scenes, pseudo-symbolic imagery (the siblings swimming in a river of blood) and other bizarre touches (a gypsy child repeatedly insults passers-by in the street until she is anonymously beaten to death, the deafening music of a rock group utilized in the demolition of old buildings). Considering the source material and the presence of Catherine Deneuve (who at least gets to bathe in the nude), I was expecting a lot more from this one; apparently, there's an even longer TV version of POLA X out there

Have you ever grown up hearing a word or two about mysterious, weird french films and had this imaginary assumption at 13 how weird a film could be? Well, 4 or 5 years later when I saw Pola X I realized this was a film that got there. I grasped that concept of film noir spook and the B movie spirit taken to the highest level. After I saw it I was like, what's for breakfast? but now thinking back I realized that I absolutely love this film. I'm not another imdb user who just saw the movie two minutes ago and decided to write a word or two about it. I'm someone who remembers this movie. And I think ten years later the fan base is definitely gonna be huge for Leos Carax. Just think of the title:Pola X, cool cultish name right? Anyway, I think this film is really about delivering a feeling and concept for us rather than delivering a message. It's also extremely romantic and sensual. A classic french film. Thank to god this kind of movie could actually be made.

It's difficult to express how bad this movie is. Even in the 1950s when intellectual searching for the meaning of life was fashionable and beatnik rejection of physical comforts, clean clothes, haircuts, etc. was a common reaction to the smug middle-class mores of both the USA and western Europe, this movie would have been a stinker. The plot is a mishmash of several dei ex machina (if that's the correct Latin grammar); the acting consists of deadpan stares broken by occasional hysterics (by the male lead as well as the females); the gratuitous view of Catherine Deneuve's (or somebody's) breasts are worthy of a Budweiser commercial; the repeated cacaphonous orchestra rehearsal in the abandoned building is I'm sure heavy with meaning in the director's mind but to me is just one more stupid symbol thrown into this meaningless movie -- I'm ranting because my time has been wasted watching this scam excuse for an art flic. The scenery is beautiful and the sex scene is hot -- but underneath his clothes, this king has no substance.