Product Description

Great Britain released, PAL/Region 2 DVD: it WILL NOT play on standard US DVD player. You need multi-region PAL/NTSC DVD player to view it in USA/Canada: LANGUAGES: French ( Dolby Digital 5.1 ), English ( Subtitles ), WIDESCREEN (2.35:1), SPECIAL FEATURES: Interactive Menu, Scene Access, Trailer(s), SYNOPSIS: It's night on a Paris bridge. A girl leans over Seine River with tears in her eyes and a violent yearning to drown her sorrows. Out of nowhere someone takes an interest in her. He is Gabor, a knife thrower who needs a human target for his show. The girl, Adele, has never been lucky and nowhere else to go. So she follows him. They travel along the northern bank of the Mediterranean to perform and in the process win a big fortune through gambling. Although both of them continue a platonic relationship, the sex-starved girl attempts to sleep with handsome guys she encounters throughout the journey. Finally, Adele falls in love with a newly-wed groom and both of them elope to Greece, while Gabor is stuck in Turkey. Then Adele is dumped by the groom. Only by now both Gabor and Adele realize that luck isn't with them unless they get together again. But both of them are so broke that they can't even feed themselves, let alone getting back to Paris and reunite... SCREENED/AWARDED AT: BAFTA Awards, Ceasar Awards, Golden Globes,

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #132815 in DVD
• Formats: Import, PAL, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 88 minutes

Features

• THIS DVD WILL NOT WORK ON STANDARD US DVD PLAYER

From The New Yorker
A waifish young woman (Vanessa Paradis) attempts to drown herself but is saved by a knife thrower (Daniel Auteuil) who persuades her to join his act, where she becomes both nerveless victim and indispensable muse. He whirls her from one fancy location to the next, living on the slim proceeds of their success and gazing with avuncular disdain upon her incessant amours. The movie promises to be as steely as the flying blades, and the knife-tossing sequences in the circus or onboard ship make you flinch; but the director, Patrice Leconte, seems unable to match the coolness of his heroine, and the story droops into whimsy. Leconte has always been a hard man to fix: tilting from randy comedy ("Tango") to the starch of costume drama ("Ridicule"), he seems engaged rather than gripped by his subjects, and the new film maintains that air of an agreeable jeu. Why film it, for instance, in severe, bleached black-and-white? Was it merely a nice idea? Still, here is your chance to study the phenomenon that is Ms. Paradis-a huge draw in France and, at the time, the beloved of Johnny Depp, who sports a similar set of cheekbones. In French. -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

The Girl On the Bridge: Charming and Clever Artistic Film
This is a charming, seemingly quirky film with a wonderful storyline beneath the playful facade. Paradis is excellent as the ethereal beauty with a gap-toothed smile who plays the symbolic "Magician's Assistant" (in this case, she is the target for the knife-throwing Autueil). She reminds one of a Mignon-type of character, sad and alone, but carefree and elusive. What I also liked about her is that she is not the typical whitewashed "perfect" beauty, which makes her both exotic and interesting to the American viewer. Autueil is also excellent as the dagger-thrower, and his performance is very nice; subdued but intense all at the same time. He rather reminds me of Robert De Niro.

Some of the "fetishistic" scenes, as the main reviewer commented, are actually very reminiscent of the scenes from Jodorowsky's "Santa Sangre", another movie revolving around the circus, sideshows, and in this case in particular, the knife-thrower and his lady assistant. The mise en scene and flashbacks are also very reminiscent of Jodorowsky's dreamy effects, not that I'm complaining. The storyline of "luck" is very cleverly intermixed in this film, and I really liked the ending (I won't give this away, of course).

Offbeat and Fun!
This is not a deep piece of cinema, by any stretch. But it will do for pure esacpism. So the plot's kinda thin, the characters and the director don't take themselves the least bit seriously. It's all about Kismet, hooking up with the right or wrong person, then riding it out.

Luck seems to pursue these star crossed lovers like some kind of Greek Fury. She's the "in bed with each new man (or facsimile therof) who looks at her twice. He's the intredpid pessimist French Guy held over from 50's and 60's French Cinema. Lots of references to Truffaut and Goddard in the characterisation, which I lapped up and thought way amusing.

Give this film a glance at least. The subtitles pretty much match what's occuring on screen with a few risible exceptions.

BEK