Absolutely Fantastic

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

The first must-see film of the year.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

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.

"La Fille sur le Pont" truly is the grown up fairy tale. Here, our Prince Charming is replaced by the unlikely Daniel Auteuil, a quick-witted, straight talking knife thrower whilst our Princess (Vanessa Paradis) proves to be a promiscuous, doe-eyed waif fallen on hard times. Both appear to live in an incomplete world, short of both companionship and luck. As expected they meet (all be it in rather peculiar circumstances) and we embark with them on their frantic journey to far off lands, fame and fortune. The film raises the age old questions of destiny and luck and the possible existence of either. Yet the director, Patrice Leconte, carefully creates an atmosphere of hope and belief and so despite all cynicism an audience does become seduced by the ideology of a good old romance.It's "rom-com" exterior proves highly deceptive as in fact it is a film of great detail and intense beauty. The absence of colour only enhances further the lavish and glamorous surroundings through which the couple saunter. The soundtrack is equally bohemian with elements of swing, samba, Asian folk and jazz all enhancing the exotic nature of the film. Combined with dynamic camera work and fast paced dialogue, the intensity of the knife-throwing scenes permeates throughout the entirety of the film.Patrice Leconte has created a charming piece of cinema that is sentimental, pretty and endearing. Definitely recommended as a quiet night-in, "feel-good" film.

We enjoyed this film, but I am mystified as to why it was made in black and white...???Apart from possibly conferring a dubious, instant 'world cinema/art movie' status it did absolutely nothing for the plot in my opinion and wasted some superb location and costume opportunities.It wasn't even executed particularly well, as most of the direction seemed to be in the modern style involving camera angles and sweeping movement and it had none of the classic 'set pieces' and static shots (panoramas, buildings etc.) of the earlier masters like the Japanese greats (Ozu, Kurosawa et al) The storyline, characters and acting should (and would) have been enough to lift this flic from the average - it simply does not benefit from being shot in black and white.Top honours must go to Vanessa Pardis for a superbly consistent performance which captured the (my) attention every time she was on the screen. I always have a little trouble with Daniel Auteil (it's the blank stare) but even he did very well despite signs of his advancing years making him look a little old for his leading lady - he is 22 years older than her after all!!Don't let all this put you off though - I rate this movie 8 out of 10 for still being refreshingly different in its treatment of unusual subjects and for carrying a story that was both engaging and entertaining.

I saw this when it was released some five or six years ago and found it only so-so perhaps due to my aversion to Vanessa Paradis, a Goldie Hawn clone who seems to be under the misconception that acting is all about looking helpless and 'cute' and standing back as all the men within a hundred mile radius roll over and play dead. However the DVD is now available at a giveaway price so I watched it again and found more to admire. I have, of course, no problem with Patrice Leconte, indeed with some twelve titles he is the French director most represented in my DVD collection, similarly Daniel Auteuil is right behind Depardieu in the front rank of French actors currently working. So it was just a question of getting round Paradis which I found somewhat easier this time around. At the time (1999) Leconte had a penchant for using one actor twice in succession - Paradis appeared in his previous film Une Chance sur deux and Auteuil would appear in his next, La Veuve de St Pierre - so having just seen Paradis acted out of sight by Alain Delon and Jean-Paul Belmondo may have had something to do with it. The film is laced with wry, cynical lines and seems to be heading into Billy Wilder (The Apartment) territory except that the growing attachment between Auteuil and Paradis is largely on a subconscious level and even at the end it makes do without a conventional clinch. The idea of the obvious 'loser' - here Paradis - becoming stronger than the obvious 'stable/strong' one - Auteuil - is far from new, in fact SO far from new as to be formulaic so all that is left is to do it well and here all hands oblige. Leconte has one of the most eclectic ouevres of any director French or otherwise so it's ironic that he's chosen to come full circle inasmuch as his latest film - which opens in February -is a return to his roots; his second film was Les Bronzes and his latest Friends For Life or Les Bronzes Revisited. Meanwhile La Fille sur le pont is well worth a look.