Boy Meets Girl Reviews

This promising second feature from young French director Léos Carax (his first was LANGUE PENDUE) plays off the old Hollywood-style "boy meets girl" romance, but here he gives it an ominous twist. The setting is a dark, black-and-white Paris, where both Denis Lavant and Mireille Perrier lead aimless, unhappy existences. Lavant, an aspiring filmmaker in his early 20s, falls into depression when his girlfriend runs off with his best friend. Perrier, as well, has been victimized in a failed romance with Elie Poicard. Having first become obsessed by Perrier's voice over an apartment intercom system, Lavant finally sees the suicidal girl walking along the Seine. Later, at a strangely posh party, Lavant and Perrier meet. Their discussion, which takes place at a kitchen table, is bizarre, humorous, and intensely dark, as the characters form a bond of dependency. They do not live happily ever after. Beautifully photographed in slick black and white by Jean-Yves Escoffier, BOY MEETS GIRL draws on the French New Wave films of Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut. Carax's vision, however, is a far darker and less universally appealing one than that of his influences, relying mostly on the modern, nihilistic "punk" sensibility of the 1980s. While it often displays the dark and frightening side of obsessive love, it suffers from a lack of depth. Aside from its few faults, BOY MEETS GIRL, which received showings at a number of film festivals (including New York and Chicago), revealed the young Carax as a promising new filmmaker.