Pola X Release Date: September 8, 2000 Starring: Catherine Deneuve, Delphine Chuillot, Guillaume Depardieu Directed by: Leos Carax
Beginning with its very title (an acronym it would take this entire review to explain), this movie is clearly the work of an enfant terrible. French writer-director Leos Carax's films are not well-known over here, and whatever notice this picture gets in the press will no doubt focus more on its 100 percent genuine sex scene than on its delirious-to-the-point-of-deranged romanticism. The story of a très pampered writer (Guillaume Depardieu, Gerard's son) who gives up his Benetton-ad existence (including a rather too-close relationship with mom Catherine Deneuve) when a mysterious woman (Yekaterina Golubyova) enters his life claiming to be his half-sister, Pola X takes the strange, sour ironies of its source material (Herman Melville's Pierre, or the Ambiguities) and embraces them the way only the work of a French enfant terrible director could. Which is to say: It's pretty damn indulgent. But I found the picture to be as exhilarating as it is exhausting; even as I was rolling my eyes, I was being seduced. The impeccable cinematography by Eric Gautier helps, as does the lush score by weird-pop recluse Scott Walker. As for that authentic, albeit dimly lit, sex scene: It's the most artistically successful in the mini-trend of hard-core scenes in recent European films. More emotionally wrenching than arousing, it's a rather stunning evocation of desperate passion.
