# Fille sur le pont, La (1999)

### reviewed by
Harvey S. Karten

GIRL ON THE BRIDGE (La Fille Sur Le Pont)

     Reviewed by Harvey Karten
     Paramount Classics
     Director: Patrice Leconte
     Writer:  Serge Frydman
     Cast: Vanessa Paradis, Daniel Auteuil

Someone once said that there are only six stories in all the world for novelists and playwrights and filmmakers to deal with. Without much doubt, the principal one is the ancient tale of boy meets girl, boy loses girl, girl gets boy. But of course the theme is not what's important in the construction of a film: the style with which the motif is presented is, and lest we get into a discussion of the relative merit of style and substance, let's say that style IS substance. If you're looking for a boy-girl story told with technique to spare, take a look at Patrice Leconte's "Girl on the Bridge," which could be dismissed by its detractors as a cute but silly story but is, on the contrary, one which I cannot recommend highly enough save for a single flaw. Since "Girl on the Bridge" is a fable, a fairy tale that features elements of both "Cinderella" and "Pygmalion," its director, Patrice Laconte has proffered the story in black-and-white photography to symbolize its timelessness and perhaps to suggest a Truffaut-like ambience. Mistake. Big mistake. Not only do the white subtitles become unreadable against a white background (not a problem for the French-speaking New York publicist but a major one for the non-Francophones in the audience), but more important the audience is likely to get the impression that Leconte is being either too cheap to use color or just plain pretentious.

The shame of it all is that "Girl on the Bridge" is so absorbing that maybe even Woody Allen would give his imprimatur to have a new, colorized version made of the parable. Rarely do two actors convey such chemistry with each other as do Daniel Auteuil and Vanessa Paradis, all the more significant considering the age difference: the 28-year- old Paradis performs in the role of a child-like beauty of 22 while the Algerian-born Auteuil, at age 50, makes a strong presence as an unusual man who is ten years his junior. But the burning desire of these two people so different in ages is just one of the unusual aspects of the movie. For one thing, the sensuality of this singular couple is evoked largely from the particular that they do not consummate their mutual desire, at least not with each other. For another, bless Mr. Laconte for breaking with the French tradition of films that talk talk and talk some more--all the stranger since his remarkable costume drama "Ridicule" was, like G.B. Shaw's "Pygmalion," all about how one's social position among the upper orders is determined by how well, with how much wit, you speak.

Filmed on location in Paris, the French Riviera, Monaco, Italy and Istanbul, "Girl on the Bridge" joins girl and boy on an overpass above the Seine in Paris, the scene of an impending suicide jump--but not before Leconte gets considerable exposition out of the way by presenting Adele (Vanessa Paradis) as the subject of a psychiatric interview before an audience of professionals presumably studying depression. An unusual stranger, Gabor (Daniel Auteuil), convinces her to curb her suicidal impulse, whereupon like a modern Prince Charming he converts the down-and-out but attractive naif into Pretty Woman, making her the target of his knife-throwing act and boosting her self-image by showing her how the receiver of the blades and not the hurler is the all-important person.

The more we watch Gabor's daring and skillful knife- throwing act--in carnivals situated in the South of France and Italy--the more we feel the eroticism that the enactment evokes, one which makes the young woman even more susceptible to the carnal intentions if the handsome men surrounding her. In the movie's one ham-fisted metaphor, Gabor exhibits a magic trick in which he converts a monetary bill which has been torn in half into a single unit. Neither half is worth a thing without the other. But just as you cannot paste up a torn dollar with half a Deutschmark if you want the bill to have any value, you must find the right person with whom to bond. "Girl on the Bridge" seems to validate the fantasy that there's only one true love for each of us, but Leconte draws us into this most romantic of illusions so deftly that only the most hard-hearted in the audience can leave the auditorium snickering.

Not Rated. Running time: 92 minutes. (C) 2000 by Harvey Karten, film_critic@compuserve.com

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