La fille sur le pont (The girl on the Bridge)- 1999
Directed by Patrice Leconte
Only the French can make a film that starts with a seven-minute monologue of the main character answering questions in front of an unknown audience or tribunal. The shot is at first straight on and then reveals an audience listening in.
Adele (Vanessa Paradis) sits in a black and white mid-shot. An off-screen female asks her questions and encourages her, “Go on Adele, tell us.” The questions are phrased in a presumptuous manner and attempt to guide Adele to answer in such a way that she see herself a victim, or to show empathy towards her. But this dialogue driven scene not only reveals back-story and narrative trajectory; it also reveals who our main character is, and why we should care for her; she does not see herself as a victim and she answers the questions not for any motive except to tell it the way it is to her. Her outlook and life attitude is somewhat fatalistic and full of despair; however, the way in which she answers the questions leaves a glimmer of hope that signals the fact that the predetermination of life is just as fleeting as the tears of her past that have stained her face.
The questions hint towards the fact that Adele should be seen as a victim, as someone who has been taken advantage of and brought to her knees by the disadvantages and inequalities of society. But Adele answers the question calmly, and matter-of-factly contradicts the guided questions. For instance, when the questioner asks about why she dropped out of school to be with a boy, saying, “You wanted to be free?” And our heroine would answer, “Actually no, I just wanted to sleep with him,” and she would then go on to explain one of her simple interpretations of what she had experienced.
This first scene, I enjoyed terribly. As a viewer, you can tell that by extension and length, the director Patrice Leconte is really trying to show us something to give insight in to the flick. It does more than set the stage; it sets a mood and tone, and expresses a theme that deals with luck, fate, and how these ephemeral notions weigh greatly on each and every individual.
After this initial scene of Adele explaining how her despair and bad luck brought her to attempt to huck herself off a bridge, the movie begins. As she inches closer, a man’s voice off-screen says, “I think you are about to make a big mistake.” The two have an off-kilter conversation that eventually leads to them (after a few major events) to discuss whether or not we have control over our destiny and what role luck plays in all of these metaphysical themes.
As it turns out, our male protagonist, Gabor (Daniel Auteuil) is a knife thrower and actually looks for lonely and desperate women who are about to kill themselves to recruit for his shows. Thus, how he found Adele on the bridge. But the film does not simply follow its laid out trajectory at this point, and like any good movie, it explores conflict and power struggles by changing the viewers mind about how they view the characters and who they are aligned with. In other words, what our initial thoughts about who holds the power, who is more sturdy, etc, becomes inverted, not only once, but a few times. In this sense, the character development’s intent is to show the complexity of life itself and evade the simplicity of how we view relationships, especially sexual ones.
In the case of our two main characters, sometimes a sexual relationship does not even involve the sexual aspect, but instead focuses on the power struggles and desire involved with becoming close and trusting someone. The Leconte is able to convey this symbolically through the metaphor of knife throwing.
The desire and tension is doubly expressed in the knife-throwers attempt to complete his task at one point blind. With Adele behind the sheet, not being able to see her creates a strong tension of desire and suspense, something that is immediately mirrored in the director’s form. The close-ups of Gabor and the crowd shots, as well as Adele’s release of ecstasy and jouissance each time a knife is thrown, could not be more linked to an act of sexual pleasure.
Why I think Lecomte has done such a good job, not only for following in the footsteps of a long French tradition of exploring desire cinematically, but also for his attempt to make the most sexual moments in the film have the least amount of sex in them, a very noble gesture. What I mean is, the knife throwing scenes tend to be more sexual than Adele’s sexual exploits, despite her naiveté to make these escapades be more genuine.
In this sense, the director has cleverly made a statement; sexual desire is everywhere, not just in the traditional sense of intimacy and intercourse. He uses his art of choice—cinema, to explore how these moments become a typifying experience of life and relationships.