Pola X (1999) User Reviews

While extreme on the surface with its fair share of incest, sex, and violence, this is a strong film for its psychological study of bohemianism and decline

[crculver · 6/10 · 29 May 2018]

When Leos Carax's film POLA X premiered in 1999, it was seen then as part of the New French Extremity movement, with critics and audiences picking up on its unsimulated sex scene. Yet that forms only a brief few minutes of quite ample film. Two decades on, audiences of today ought to look past the sensation and appreciate the film for what it really has to offer: a convincing contemporary take on Hermann Meville's psychological novel PIERRE, and the way Carax interweaves Melville's structure of 19th-century wealthy elites with harrowing references to contemporary France, Bosnia and the plight of Balkan refugees.

The son of a deceased diplomat of some note, Pierre (Guillaume Depardieu) lives in splendor in rural France, in a manor house with his widowed mother (Catherine Deneuve). Things are going well for young Pierre: a novel he has written has become a bestseller and he is engaged to the lovely Lucie (Delphine Chuillot). But then he encounters a mysterious woman named Isabelle (Yekaterina Golubeva) who tells him in broken French that she is his half-sister, born to Pierre's diplomat father and an unknown Balkan woman. Isabelle is in fact less a character and more a spectral presence that haunts Pierre's life. Intrigued by this otherworldly creature, Pierre gives up his privileged existence and enters into a vividly depicted bohemianism that brings about his physical and mental decline.

POLA X prefers to tell its story more through visceral images than dialogue. In fact, the dialogue is deliberately stilted, allowing the film to dip in and out of its basis in Melville's 19th-century novel. So much of the story of Pierre's decline is told through the bucolic idyll of the first half of the film and the brutal squalor he later chooses. This imagery is so strong that even if POLA X feels somewhat too tentative about itself to rank as one of the all-time greatest films, it has haunted this viewer's thoughts since watching it.

Another nice touch of POLA X is the close way in which Carax worked with the composer of the film's score Scott Walker, who was then fresh from his acclaimed album TILT. When Pierre leaves home after meeting Isabelle, he enters into a bizarre community of artists in an industrial setting, who seem to be hiding sinister plans behind their avant-garde work. It is here that Walker's score goes from the subdued strings of the first half of the film into brasher, more aggressive sounds. Carax has set things up so this music is both diegetic and non-diegetic, part of the outside narration of Pierre's psychological decline and contemporary political strife as much as the film's action itself.

is pretentious always a bad thing? maybe not, even if it keeps from being very recommendable

[Quinoa1984 · 6/10 · 27 June 2007]

I kept thinking watching Pola X, the first Leos Carax film I've seen yet, what it means for a film or any work of art to be "pretentious". The dictionary defines it as being or seeming to be "expressive of affected, unwarranted, or exaggerated importance, worth, or stature". Carax does indeed want his film to be important, and sometimes he does go to exaggerated lengths to get his results, of the 'artsy-fartsy' kind that one would only find in small art-houses in NYC (in fact, this was probably a film that screened for at least a month at the Angelika in Manhattan). But there's an intriguing conceit that Carax has with his material as it goes along: it's almost as if he's critiquing pretension, mocking it in subtle ways as he shows his disparate and desperate character heading towards an uber tragic end. It's a story that unfolds too thickly in hopelessness, where the characters don't seem to mind it as there is hope for two of them, at one point, that things will get better until they start getting horribly worse, sometimes in the abstract. Try as I might have at the half-way point to dismiss it as rambling pseudo-poetic French dreck, there's an appeal and watchable quality to it all, and I'd almost be inclined to call it a good effort...Almost.

The story is taken from a Herman Melville novel, though I'd wonder how much exactly was changed in the adaptation (incest, anyone?) Pierre (Depardieu, son of Gerard) is a novelist engaged to beautiful Lucie, and lives with his mother (Deneauve), but is torn away after finding one night in the woods that he has a long lost older sister who was raised elsewhere in Europe. He moves with her to Paris, and after getting rejected by a cousin (Lucas, disappearing for a long while in the film then returning in act three, or five, or whatever), go to live in a big warehouse type of loft where a weird avant-garde rock band practices and records songs. Meanwhile, a new crazy book is in the works, a child that was tagging along with another woman (I'd assume Isabelle's friend or caregiver or something) is killed randomly, and pretty quickly Pierre goes as insane and rambling as his book. Now, granted, a lot of this is presented matter-of-factly, but there is a mood that Carax creates that makes it "affected". There's a tint, for example, that sometimes makes characters look all blue- which works more or less in the revelation of who Isabelle is to Pierre in the woods- and scenes that aren't totally clear as to whether they are really real or imagined (Deneuve's fate on a bike is shot and executed almost as a parody of itself). And Depardieu himself is like a walking pit of uncertain angst. He plays him adequately enough, but there is the creeping sense, as with the film a lot of times, that there isn't quite as much dimension as one would hope, or at least would think the filmmaker would recognize.

Not that this is a total deterrent. I like when a filmmaker isn't afraid to plunge the viewer into unconventional duress and ambiguity, and for at least a few scenes Pola X does feel thriving with a sense of drama infused well by the exquisite but anxious camera-work (the child's death is one of these, as well as the climax that gains momentum in a style comparable to Strosek, minus the chicken). And the actual band in the movie itself seems to be Carax commenting on what he must realize is over-reaching in other sections; is it to be taken seriously, really, when we see the lead singer or whomever it is doing a weird body movement while the abdomen is covered in red? There's even a trippy dream scene with characters in a river of blood that treads that pretension line: you can sense the filmmaker behind it is so happy with how it came out as mad as it is, and it's actually quite an eye-full. Carax also pulls off one of the most explicit sex scenes in film history (full penetration, among other acts of foreplay), and this oddly enough does serve an emotional point- it feels eerie in the light, but strangely intimate.

All of this adds up to what then? Is Pola X worth watching? If you're familiar already with/admire Carax's work, it's a pretty safe bet as an act of semi-experimentation. For a first-timer to his work, like myself, it's a hit or miss experience, but one I wasn't too upset at having. At the least, one can say, Carax didn't go to the lengths of the man who directed a film Carax once starred in: Godard's King Lear. 6.5/10

Violence, explicit/deviant sex and other shock used to propel story

[El Norte · 5/10 · 5 June 1999]

Imagine the 2,500 seat Lumiere Theatre at Cannes dead silent. No one breathed as the incestuous sex scene began.

Understandably, half of the audience applauded as others booed the close of this film. The innovations in sound are remarkable, and locations stunning, but the crawling pace of a youthful cult leader's slow descent and eventual destruction of everyone near to him is arduous business. Thankfully it is broken up by strange twists of circumstance which justify those tortured looks from monolithic Deneuve and Depardeiu. It's just a bit of a shame that such traditional shock elements (an exploding head, a beautifully choreographed motorcycle accident) are precisely what the audience lives for to lift the weight of the rest of the picture. Carax's reply to the press between long drags on a cigarette, "What explicit imagery?" told me the rest of the story.

The downward spiral presented as a genuinely bold and intense cinematic achievement.

[ThreeSadTigers · 31 December 2007]

As others have no doubt previously noted, 'Pola X' (1999) was the much anticipated return feature from former "cinema du look" stalwart and infant-terrible Leos Carax; a bold and imaginative filmmaker who made a name for himself in the early to mid nineteen-eighties with the quirky and melancholic romantic fantasy films Boy Meets Girl (1984) and Mauvais Sang (1986), before taking his central themes of unrequited love and alienated Parisian youth to the next conceivable level with the film Les Amants Du Pont-Neuf (1991). That particular film was supposed to be the one that would finally introduce Carax to a wider cinematic audience; finding the filmmaker refining his usual themes and structural preoccupations with a larger budget and much in the way of creative freedom. Sadly, things didn't go to plan; the eventual film - a wildly uneven though often quite captivating blend of romantic folly and violent social realism - went massively over-budget and over-schedule before finally limping out with a limited release almost half a decade after Carax had initially started the project.

As with films like Apocalypse Now, Blade Runner, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and the work of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, subsequent years have seen a re-appraisal of said film, with many people being drawn to Les Amants Du Pont-Neuf; seeing it as some sort of flawed epic or a minor masterpiece showcasing the triumph of imagination and free-thinking independence during the last gasp of intelligent, daring and entirely unique European film making. Time, however, has been less kind to the film in question; with the general consensus of most viewers and professional critics being that Pola X is muddled, confusing, plodding and pretentious. One wonders if these people are familiar with Carax's previous work at all.

Pola X is loose adaptation/up-date of Herman Melville's controversial novella, Pierre; or the Ambiguities, the title here an acronym for the novel's original French title, while the "X" denotes the number of drafts the script went through. Carax moves the story from old New York to contemporary Paris, spending the first half of the film projecting a backdrop of sun-kissed gardens and stately manner houses as we are introduced to the spoilt and carefree existence of our young hero. When we meet him, Pierre (Guillaume Depardieu) is living the good life, sharing the family house with his glamorous mother and about to be married to his beautiful fiancé. Pierre has also written an incredibly successful novel, albeit, under the pseudonym Aladdin, giving him much in the way of acclaim and public interest and the offer from his publisher to create a follow-up. Things become complicated, however, when Pierre follows a dark and mysterious young woman who has been stalking him, and, in one of the film's most talked-about and visually cryptic sequences, discovers that the woman is in fact his half-sister.

What follows requires a great leap of faith on the part of the audience, as Pierre, hooked completely by the confession of this wounded lost soul, takes it upon himself to atone for the sins of his father, who abandoned the girl when she was still a child, and carries her under his wing in an attempt to make right what was wrong through the writing of his second novel. The film, like Carax's earlier work, specifically Les Amants Du Pont-Neuf, skirts freely between the idealised and romantic poetry of his grand visual gestures and the squalor and violence presented by the real world. As a result, it's an incredibly bleak work; one that visualises the slow destruction of the central character's world with an opening montage of world war II stock footage over a clanging industrial soundtrack from Scott Walker that re-appears throughout the film as the grip that Pierre might have had to the world he once knew becomes more and more strained.

Some problems that people have with the film include the fragmented narrative, which has characters drifting in and out like leaves being scattered by the wind, and the uncertainty and blind faith presented in the central concept, in which Pierre gives up his idyllic, affluent lifestyle to live a destitute existence on the fringes of society; all for a woman that he's never really known and only has her word on the matter that they are in fact brother and sister. Another point that many take issue with is the prolonged and sexually-explicit love scene that takes place during the second half of the film. Although shot in almost total darkness - recalling the aforementioned scene in which Isabelle (Yekaterina Golubeva) makes her confession to Pierre as the couple wander lost and confused through a darkened woodland - the scene, regardless, is no less intimate; featuring fine performances from both lead actors and the provocative inclusion of an un-simulated blow-job and vaginal penetration shot.

The explicitness of the sex scene here is intended to drive home the potential illicitness of this union between brother and sister and how the love that grows between the two of them will only end up destroying everything that follows. For me, the film gripped from beginning to end, mostly because of the powerful central performance from Depardieu, who brings a De Niro-like level of intensity to Pierre; this loveless character who only wants to do right and to experience something deeper and more real than the sheltered and carefree existence that he had previously known, undone and corrupted by a the secrets and sins of a world he never knew existed. Carax's direction is more understated than his first two films, capturing the raw intimacy central to the relationship between Pierre and Isabelle and the spiralling sense of squalor and personal despair that Pierre descends into; finally manifesting itself in an impressive CGI dream-sequence in which Pierre and another central character are washed away on a tidal wave of blood. A fitting prelude to that unforgettably downbeat final.

interesting

[bedazzle · 7/10 · 6 April 2001]

This movie starts off somewhat slowly and gets running towards the end. Not that that is bad, it was done to illustrate character trait degression of the main character. Consequently, if you are not into tragedies, this is not your movie. It is the thought provoking philosophy of this movie that makes it worthwhile. If you liked Dostoyevsky's 'Crime and Punishment," you will probably like this if only for the comparisons. The intriguing question that the movie prompts is, "What is it that makes a renowned writer completely disregard his publicly-aproved ideas for another set?" The new ideas are quite opposed to the status quo-if you are a conservative you will not like this movie.

Besides other philosophical questions, I must admit that the movie was quite aesthetically pleasing as well. The grassy hillsides and beautiful scenery helped me get past the slow start. Also, there was use of coloric symbolism in representing the mindstate of the main characters. If these sorts of things do not impress you, skip it. Overall I give this movie a 7.

Writer's Block.

[rmax304823 · 3/10 · 28 June 2006]

I wish Depardieu had been able to finish his book and see it become a dazzling success. At least he'd have wound up with something that would interest and perhaps comfort others. We all know that, outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside a dog it's too dark to read.

The film struck me as pointless, rambling, and very stylish, like some other recent French films. Not to knock it. Most recent American films are pointless and rambling and have no style whatever. We should be grateful, I suppose, for photography that evokes a European city in the midst of a wind-blown Continental winter, and for elliptical conversations that challenge our ability to understand what's up.

But there can be too much of a good thing. Golubeva is found stumbling around near the sea in the middle of the freezing night, carrying on in a bad accent about dreams and such. (There are a few sequences of dreams that include things like swimming in a river of blood. You'll love it if you're Vlad the Impaler.) Lots of people die. Catherine Deneuve dies in a suicide by motorcycle. I don't know why. Golubeva's young girl dies too, and I don't know why she dies either. She gets slapped in the face, falls to the pavement, and dies.

There is supposedly an explicit sex scene too. I'll have to take their word for it because, although it is stylishly photographed, it is stylishly photographed in almost complete darkness. Don't worry about the kiddies being shocked. They'll probably be asleep by this time anyway.

Depardieu isn't a bad actor. As we see him deteriorate from a carefully groomed handsome young man -- well, handsome except that his nose can't seem to get out of his way -- to a limping, murderous, hairy physical wreck, we feel sorry for the guy. Golubeva has a wan pretty face, with enormous half-lidded eyes and wide cheeks, like a doll. Her next movie should be a remake of Lewton's "I Walked With a Zombie." Then there is this mysterious guy who leads a band. I guess it's a band. As far as I could make out, the band is made up of about a dozen drummers and a dozen musicians playing electric guitars. Every viewer will find the resultant sound interesting but uncultivated listeners fond of "easy listening" might not enjoy it. If you don't like the music, there's a payoff involved because the sinister composer and leader gets whacked over the head with Depardieu's walking stick.

I must say, I found it barely worth sitting through. (And it's a longie, too.) At times it was like waiting in your car at a railroad crossing while a long long freight train rumbles slowly by, sometimes stopping entirely. I wish it had had a few jokes.

Deconstructing romanticism

[f_helmut · 7/10 · 19 January 2006]

At times I really wonder… when I look at the comments here it seems as if most people have seen a completely different film than I have. I've just seen it... and liked it. Not in the way, that it made me happy, but in the way of having seen a good film!

The film needs some patience, yes. And yes, the main character is REALLY annoying, but that I'm sure is by intention.

Maybe it really makes a difference if you watch this film in a cinema or at home. Most people watch films at home like they are listening to elevator music. This movie definitely doesn't fit as background noise.

And no. Good directing doesn't mean having five laughs or explosions a second. Good directing means following your subject and keeping the story and actors together. And while that doesn't work out perfectly, at least I think it works quite good.

I liked the photography and sets, even if they brink on the surreal at times. The opening scene is really special.

I also liked the acting – Guillaume Depardieu is NOT playing Pierre. He is acting the role of a Pierre who is himself playing a role! Pierre is not the romantic hero that he so hard tries to be, he is a presumptuous and self-righteous idiot, a downright weakling who by and by harms all the people he claims to protect. That even his love for truth is simply a pose is beautifully demonstrated by his ongoing lying and not even once asking questions or explaining himself.

People are wondering where this or that person came from and other stuff: No character who is seen for more than two scenes is left unexplained, there is enough information scattered throughout the film on everyone.

And even the strange building begins to make sense as soon as the target practicing is seen: Remember that Isabelle fled from a war zone - and obviously this is a refuge for fighters in a civil war, most likely Bosnia (which was still going on, when the film was produced). At least that's what is hinted at by the story Isabelle tells Pierre when she first meets him and by the later scene where Pierre shows Isabelle the book with his father on the cover, which is surrounded by books on Bosnia.

To borrow from the film itself: "A raving morass that reeks of plagiarism."

[Latheman-9 · 3/10 · 9 February 2006]

I want very much to believe that the above quote (specifically, the English subtitle translation), which was actually written, not spoken, in a rejection letter a publisher sends to the protagonist, was meant to be self-referential in a tongue-in-cheek manner. But if so, director Leos Carax apparently neglected to inform the actors of the true nature of the film. They are all so dreadfully earnest in their portrayals that I have to conclude Carax actually takes himself seriously here, or else has so much disdain for everyone, especially the viewing audience, that he can't be bothered letting anyone in on the joke.

Some auteurs are able to get away with making oblique, bizarre films because they do so with élan and unique personal style (e.g., David Lynch and Alejandro Jodorowsky). Others use a subtler approach while still weaving surreal elements into the fabric of the story (e.g., Krzysztof Kieslowski, and David Cronenberg's later, less bizarre works). In Pola X, Carax throws a disjointed mess at the viewer and then dares him to find fault with it. Well, here it is: the pacing is erratic and choppy, in particular continuity is often dispensed with; superfluous characters abound (e.g., the Gypsy mother and child); most of the performances are overwrought; the lighting is often poor, particularly in the oft-discussed sex scene; unconnected scenes are thrust into the film for no discernible reason; and the list goes on.

Not to be completely negative, it should be noted that there were some uplifting exceptions. I liked the musical score, even the cacophonous industrial-techno music being played in the sprawling, abandoned complex to which the main characters retreat in the second half of the film (perhaps a reference to Andy Warhol's 'Factory' of the '60s?). Much of the photography of the countryside was beautiful, an obvious attempt at contrast with the grimy city settings. And, even well into middle-age, Cathering Deneuve shows that she still has 'it'. Her performance was also the only one among the major characters that didn't sink into bathos.

There was an earlier time when I would regard such films as "Pola X" more charitably. Experimentation is admirable, even when the experiment doesn't work. But Carax tries nothing new here; the film is a pastiche of elements borrowed from countless earlier films, and after several decades of movie-viewing and literally thousands of films later, I simply no longer have the patience for this kind of unoriginal, poorly crafted tripe. At this early moment in the 21st century, one is left asking: With the exception of Jean-Pierre Jeunet, are there *any* directors in France who know how to make a watchable movie anymore? Rating: 3/10.

Another misunderstood masterpiece.

[DrMoonlight · 9/10 · 25 January 2003]

When Melville's "Pierre; or The Ambiguities" hit bookstores in 1852, his first publication since "Moby Dick" a year earlier, the public response was similar to that found among the IMDB reviews of "POLA X". Newspapers even published headlines like: "Melville Insane!" which, of course, he wasn't. But, when one compares the writing styles found in "Moby Dick" and "Pierre," one finds in the latter a sharp departure from the simple and often declamatory style found in the former. Clearly, he was mimicking the overly florid style of the now-forgotten Victorian Romances that were easily outselling his immortal "Moby Dick." He was not content, however, to turn out the sort of product that his publishers wanted, and that surely would have sold. His version of a Victorian romance was a twisted, cynical one, perhaps, but brilliant in its synthesis. The alternate title: "The ambiguities" is quite appropriate. As Pierre searches for, and thinks he finds, truth, we become more and more uncertain what and whom to believe. As he searches for happiness, he becomes more and more miserable.

"POLA X" is a fascinating adaptation of this novel, set in modern or nearly modern France. Though, in some ways, it leaves little to the imagination, and shows us graphically the incestuous relations that Melville could only hint at, the ambiguities which make the novel and its message so alluring are perfectly in tact. The questions it raises are ones that few films have thought to ask, yet the answers are left to the viewer.

I recommend a reading of the novel, which is much shorter than "Moby Dick," before seeing this movie. I hope more people discover this tantalizing film.

Changes

[Grim-13 · 7/10 · 13 May 1999]

Leos Carax has made 3 great movies: Boys Meet Girls, Mauvais Sang, Les Amants du Pont Neuf. In fact those films were not that great but it has the violence of youth, the beauty of juvenile wilderness. Carax in these three movies was well aware of what cinema was, but he tried to make his own vision of the art, without thinking about about all he have seen, but using it and melting it into his times. Pola X is a very different movie because Carax made Les Amants du Pont Neuf, a monstruosity of 20 millions dollars, a film that has destroyed everything on its way. After such a movie you can't do another one in the same point of view. So Leos Carax has to changed, and he did. The movie isn't as beautiful as its first, it's more reasonable, no more studio, no more dreamed Paris, Carax has entered at last reality. It's not clean anymore, it's not poetic characters. Carax have become a romantic in the german sense of it.

About nothing

[SilverOrlov · 1/10 · 12 April 2019]

If the first part of the film was more or less interesting, then the rest, after meeting a girl from dreams, one solid "grafomania" (pathetic demagogy), text for the sake of text, that would show off the difficulty from scratch.

Fascinating Aesthetics

[malkotozlo · 10/10 · 15 August 2008]

I watched Pola X because Scott Walker composed the film score and I admire his music a lot. Frankly, I expected a somewhat pretentious and possibly incoherent French movie. I was wrong. The vision of the film quickly managed to engage my attention to the fullest - starting with the opening sequence, which shows black and white footage of military airplanes throwing bombs at graves at the sounds of music and Scott Walker's beautiful wailing voice. The film explores the identity crisis of Pierre (Guillaume Depardieu - a brilliant choice for the role) and his consequential (self-)destruction. The story is divided into two parts – the first depicts Pierre's carefree life in a beautiful house in the French countryside and the second follows his utter personal disintegration after he abandons everything and moves to Paris to live in squalor with his supposed half-sister. Both parts contain some amazingly stunning photography – the first very colorful and bright, the second utterly gloomy and nearly apocalyptic - adding up to a true aesthetic feast. Pola X is a fascinating and quite unique movie experience.

I want to read the original Melville now

[alldanman · 7/10 · 15 March 2009]

I agree with "johnlewis", who said that there is a lot going on between the lines in this film. While I do think the pacing of this film could be improved, I do think that the complexity of the relationships between the characters is fascinating.

Examples :

Pierre is going to marry his cousin, even though his love for her seems very cousin-y ?

Pierre and his stepmother have a rather...curious relationship.

Pierre, Lucie, and Thibault seem to have a triangular relationship, and the actual points to the triangle are not quite certain...

Lucie's brother is a bit of a eunuch, or is he ?

And Isabelle, who is she really ??

Overall, I think it was worth my time. An interesting film, and one that makes me want to read Melville.

Why did Carax meddle with Melville's ending?

[JuguAbraham · 5/10 · 2 May 2017]

Based on Herman Melville's story. Director Carax, who can be mesmerising when he is good, makes this film unbelievably trashy. Stay away.

And surprise, surprise--for some unfathomable reason Carax deviates from Melville's ending where there are three suicides instead of one as chosen by Carax in the film.

Even then it is a disaster of a film--Catherine Deneuve's time on the screen is the only saving grace.

Amazing visuals, earnest film

[mumblequatch · 26 August 2001]

What to say? The film is overdone, for sure, but I can't agree with criticism of the lack of naturalism in the film. It's melodramatic, yes, it's over-the-top, yes, it's self-important, yes, but for all that, I think it ends up telling a story with interest and passion that would be very difficult to tell except in this way. It's a story about a certain, highly Romantic worldview that, yes, is basically horseshit, but at least Carax is honest with his audience about where that kind of self-aggrandizement leads.

What almost saves the film from total pretentiousness is the fact that Pierre must lie in the bed he has made for himself. If one demands so much "truth" out of life, if one rejects anything with the slightest tinge of falsehood about it, then that is yet another ridiculous attitude. And by that I mean, yes, in the end Pierre is ridiculous, but maybe that's Carax's point?

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe he does end up as a Romantic hero in the end. And maybe it's not so original for that reason.

Inexplicable adaptation of Melville

[timmy_501 · 6/10 · 1 June 2012]

With previous films including Mauvais Sang and The Lovers on the Bridge, Leos Carax's characters were constantly on the brink of madness, or at least a disturbing single-mindedness. This is a trend that Carax continues and expands with Pola X. In this adaptation of Herman Melville's Pierre, or The Ambiguities, Carax depicts characters whose madness is palpable as their behavior becomes more and more erratic. Main character Pierre, a successful writer who lives in a mansion on a rambling estate with his perhaps too adoring mother, abandons his family and loving girlfriend Lucie in order to strike out on his own with Isabelle, a foreign vagrant who claims to be his sister. Things take a dark turn quickly as his sister's odd companions get him in trouble with everyone he meets and his relationship with Isabelle becomes sexual. At the same time, he has trouble with his writing and becomes intimately involved with an unexplained cult. Eventually it becomes clear that he has left his old life because he felt that his way of life was not true enough, though ironically he is repeatedly accused of being an impostor in his new life, something that never happened before he set out trying to embody the truth. Later on, things take a turn for the darkly comic as Pierre introduces Lucie to Isabelle as his cousin in order to allay her suspicion about his relationship with her—given their odd relationship, she logically ought to be just as worried about his attraction to a female with a family connection to him. After this point, however, all logic is abandoned as Pierre and Isabelle become more and more unhinged.

The problem with Pola X isn't just that it's generally inexplicable if not altogether incomprehensible because of rushed and underdeveloped characters and events, it's that Carax largely abandons the visual style he put to such great use in his earlier films, opting instead for a drab aesthetic that emphasizes the sordid misery of the characters' surroundings. Even the few unusual shots he employs here seem like half- hearted rehashes of better scenes in his previous films. Still, even lesser Carax is of some interest.

What would happen if a drunken, untalented and unintelligent amateur poet tried to make a movie?

[aa77 · 1/10 · 24 February 2006]

You would probably get something like this. I'm translating movies for a living and this is the first movie in my 5-year working experience that I found offensive to my intelligence. Of course, there are stupid Hollywood movies about drunken teenagers on a spring break, but those movies don't even claim to be serious works of art. But when someone strives for greatness and poetry, but delivers a muddled (and often ridiculous) story, a bunch of disparate scenes, pretentious dialogue... Then you get the worst kind of a movie that some other reviewer very accurately defined as "pretentious crap". To those who find this movie intelligent or even masterful, I can only say - it's your intelligence and your imagination you obviously used to try and make some sense of this pitiful attempt (it's in our human nature to try and make sense of things) .

One more thing: I can tolerate political incorrectness very well, I'm all for artistic freedom and suspension of disbelief, but the Slavic female character was just too much. I wish someone told the director that it's kind of ridiculous (even in an unrealistic art movie) to portray a Slavic woman as a half-articulate dishevelled creature connected to the forces of nature, probably due to the fact that she had spent her entire childhood looking at the stars and milking cows on a three-legged stool.

Feels like it wants to be Zulawski - doesn't quite hit the mark

[Stay_away_from_the_Metropol · 6/10 · 28 July 2021]

Quite a bizarre film here, especially in regards to asking yourself how it should make you feel, or what makes it good or bad. Previously the only Leos Carax movie I'd seen was Holy Motors, which receives an immense amount of praise internationally, yet I was unable to find much about it to like. I decided to watch this for 2 reasons: 1. Because it was one of 3 films that one of my favorite musicians (Scott Walker) did the score for (the other two being Childhood of a Leader, and Vox Lux) - they showed a clip from the production in 30th Century Man, the Scott Walker documentary, and it looked nuts. 2. Because it has Catherine Deneuve in it.

To summarize, like many French/Italian movies I've seen, there is a not-so-subtle air of incest throughout the film, and that seems to be why it's referred to as "erotic", because the only sexual encounters that occur are between siblings. Lead actor Guillaume Depardieu (the IRL rebel son of infamous actor Gerard, who died of pneumonia at age 37 in 2008) plays a writer who seems to have more sexual tension with his older sister (Catherine Deneuve, the legend) than he does with his girlfriend. But wait, that's just the precursor.

Enter Yekaterina Golubeva (who's face reminds me of a bit of Anna Falchi, one of the most striking actresses of all time, especially in Cemetery Man), playing a disheveled girl who he keeps seeing in his dreams, then suddenly he's seeing her in real life. She claims to be his long lost sister, and without even questioning it, they end up having a lot of intense sex. When we get to talking to her, her character's name is ISABELLE and she bears a striking resemblance in both looks and vibes to Isabelle Adjani's alternative persona character, Helen, from Possession, yet she retains a heavy dose of Adjani's manic hysteria from her primary "Anna" in her performance as well. I can't help but feel like this is in direct homage to the Zulawski classic (my favorite film of all time), especially because, by the end of this film, the entire thing really feels like it wants to capture the otherworldly surrealism that Zulawski was such a master of, but, sadly it always falls short.

Other than the immensely good looking cast, there are only a couple sequences that I feel will really stick with me. The very brief "raging river of blood" dream sequence is pretty mind-blowing, and thus iconic - I still wonder how they shot that, but it's literally less than a minute long and serves no true purpose in relation to the rest of the film. I cracked up every time the giant experimental noise band was performing and being conducted by the "cult leader" in the warehouse - but that's only because I'm such a big Scott Walker fan and it feels as if it's all coming directly from his bizarro brain. There were also a couple moments of surprisingly effective violence that were unexpected and a bit of a surprise. But those things aside, the film mostly floats on an ineffective path somewhere between realism and surrealism, never making enough sense to allow emotive response, but never poetic or symbolic enough to allow itself to evolve into a fully realized art film. I doubt I'd ever watch it again, but I'm glad I did this once.

I wonder if there's a Leos Carax film out that I actually will connect with...

excruciatingly boring, pretentious, a scam

[bergsy-2 · 1/10 · 25 February 2003]

It's difficult to express how bad this movie is. Even in the 1950s when intellectual searching for the meaning of life was fashionable and beatnik rejection of physical comforts, clean clothes, haircuts, etc. was a common reaction to the smug middle-class mores of both the USA and western Europe, this movie would have been a stinker. The plot is a mishmash of several dei ex machina (if that's the correct Latin grammar); the acting consists of deadpan stares broken by occasional hysterics (by the male lead as well as the females); the gratuitous view of Catherine Deneuve's (or somebody's) breasts are worthy of a Budweiser commercial; the repeated cacaphonous orchestra rehearsal in the abandoned building is I'm sure heavy with meaning in the director's mind but to me is just one more stupid symbol thrown into this meaningless movie -- I'm ranting because my time has been wasted watching this scam excuse for an art flic. The scenery is beautiful and the sex scene is hot -- but underneath his clothes, this king has no substance.

Truly breathtaking; a modern masterpiece.

[someguywithnobeliefs · 10/10 · 8 December 2009]

Pola X is a beautiful adaption of Herman Melville's 'Pierre; or, the Ambiguities'. The comments on here surprise me, it makes me wonder what has led to the overwhelmingly negative reaction.

The shock value is the least appealing thing about this film - a minor detail that has been blown out of proportion. The story is of Pierre's downfall - and the subsequent destruction of those around him - which is overtly demonstrated in his features, demeanour and idiolect. The dialogue and soundtrack set this film apart from any other I have seen, and turn a fundamentally traditional storyline with controversial twists into an unforgettably emotional epic.

I can't stress enough the importance of disregarding everything you have heard about this film and watching, as I did, with an open mind. You will, I hope, be rewarded in the same way that I was. I felt on edge and nervous from around the half-hour mark, however the film is far from scary in any traditional sense. It will leave you with 1,000 thoughts, each of them at once troublesome and thrilling. I know I'm gushing here, but I feel the need to make up for the negative perception of this film. It's the best I've seen all year.

the younger Depardieu...

[ksf-2 · 6/10 · 9 September 2019]

Weirdness... they took a one hour story, and made a two hour film out of it. the old joke goes .. they picked up everything off the cutting room floor and put it back into the movie. Guillaume Depardieu ( son of Gerard!) stars as Pierre, who leaves his family to come to the rescue (out of guilt ?) of his maybe half sister Isabelle (Yekaterina Golubeva). he gives up a fine, leisurely life of wealth to go live with Isabelle, and it gets very nouvelle artsy. Cue the strange musicians in a derelict, cement structure, where everyone seems to be homeless and in bad health (?). Blood, guts, murder, maybe even insanity ? Sadly, Guillaume D. would die quite young at 37. some explicit sex, so not for the young ones to watch. the story is solid, but it moves pretty slowly. A slow decent into jealousy and madness. Directed by Leos Carax. The original story seems to be based on a Herman Melville story. Who knew?? Pretty good, if you have the patience for a two hour plus film. there are some special features included on the DVD available in the USA. Depardieu would make films for another nine years.

pretentious crap

[vyto34 · 1/10 · 30 September 2002]

The movie contains a very short scene of Deneuve in a bathtub. She looks absolutely stunning for a lady age 56, but this is the only saving grace of the movie. Otherwise, it has a mindless, unmotivated script and the lead actress has none of Deneuve's appeal. The director apparently watched too many Peter Greenaway films and Pola X comes across as a student's imitation of the Greenaway style, without any of his inspiration.

Melodrama at Its Most Extreme, a Phantasmagoric Trotskyite Fantasy

[robert-temple-1 · 9/10 · 5 January 2008]

No one would ever question that director Leos Carax is a genius, but what we wonder about is: is he an insane genius? So many people hated this film! I am normally the first person to accuse many French directors of making offensive, boring, disgusting and pretentious films (such as the horrible recent film 'L'Enfant' and the pointless and offensive 'Feux Rouges'). But strangely enough, I actually think that 'Pola X' is an amazing film, made with great skill and passion by a master of his craft, and containing remarkable performances. The film does carry melodrama to more extreme lengths than I believe I have ever seen on screen before. But then, Carax is extreme, that we know. The film also contains what I consider way over-the-top Trotskyite or Anarchist fantasies and wet-dreams, what with a mysterious group of young men training to fire machine guns at the bourgeoisie in between playing Scott Walker's rather fascinating music in a band which has its recording sessions in an abandoned warehouse filled with squatters and fires burning in old steel barrels. Guillaume Depardieu plays a rich young man in a château (whose step-mother is Catherine Deneuve, and he wanders into her bathroom while she is naked in the bath, by the way). But he suddenly 'snaps' completely when he discovers that his deceased father, a famous diplomat, had fathered an illegitimate daughter who had been effectively disposed of by Deneuve as an inconvenience. This is because the sister suddenly turns up as a kind of Romanian refugee with wild dishevelled hair, expressionless face, and little ability to speak French coherently. Depardieu then transforms himself into a 'class hero' of the far left and wants to kill or destroy his family for their hypocrisy and corruption, and lives in squalor and extreme poverty, while scorning a vast inheritance. He then commences an incestuous sexual relationship with his half-sister, which is shown in an explicit sex scene which has offended many people, though I have no objection to it, as I think people are far too hysterical about sex, especially in America, where apparently it never happens. The intensity of the acting and the filming make this unlikely scenario come off as an experience of powerful, if depressing, hyper-melodrama. The differences between Carax making an extreme film like this and the numerous extreme French films which I think are pretentious and disgusting are (1) that Carax is an excellent filmmaker, and (2) he is seriously attempting to explore a meaningful, if harrowing, extreme emotional condition, whereby a human being disintegrates and turns against his background. Many would say that the extreme elements in this film were gratuitous, but I don't agree. I believe Carax was genuine, and was not making an exploitation picture at all. It is very difficult to defend a man who goes that far and who, for all I know, may be a complete madman, but I believe he deserves defending for this remarkable cinematic achievement.

Polarizing

[tomsview · 7/10 · 23 May 2022]

Despite its modern gloss, "Pola X" feels rooted in those epic old 19th century novels with their mega melodramatic stories by writers such as Hugo, Zola, Hardy, The Brontës or, as in this case, Herman Melville. The setting for his "Pierre; or, The Ambiguities" was changed for the film from mid 19th Century America to modern day France.

Pierre (Guillaume Depardieu), who is writing a second novel after his wildly successful first one, lives with his widowed mother (Catherine Deneuve) in a chateau in Normandy. However their relationship is more like brother and sister. There is a whiff of incest in the air, and as we discover, Pierre likes to keep it all in the family. Pierre is engaged to the beautiful, fragile Lucie (Delphine Chuillot) who lives in a nearby chateau, but he is troubled by a reoccurring dream of a dark-haired woman.

Before he is to be married, he encounters the woman who tells him she is his half-sister, Isabelle (Yekaterina Golubeva), born to their diplomat father in Eastern Europe. Pierre who seems pretty unsettled anyway takes off to Paris with Isabelle. They end up as lovers living in an artist's commune in a converted warehouse (an old church, The Apostles, in Melville's novel).

However his life and fame catch up with him, the distraught Lucie even comes to hang out with him and Isabelle. Finally Pierre becomes totally unhinged and we get an ending that is pretty extreme although not as extreme as the one in old Herman's novel where all three protagonists, Pierre, Lucie and Isabelle commit suicide together, outdoing the ending of just about all the novels of his contemporaries.

Of course director and co-writer Leos Carax has overlayed Melville's jottings with his own worldview with the beauty of the countryside contrasted with some depressing impressions of modern day Paris.

The film has a couple of haunting scenes, especially the death of a little refugee girl, but also has scenes that seem interminable. There is also a bit of sex that old Herman forgot to include.

This particular updating of 19th century scribing to a modern day film feels off-kilter, but not easily forgotten. The untimely deaths of Guillaume and Yekaterina also add a sense of sadness to the film.

Pestilence to conceited symbolic film-language and impervious chiffres!

[marchrijo · 1/10 · 1 February 2000]

French Cinema sucks! Down with all these psychiotric visions with their my-God-am-I-cultivated distinguished attitudes! Pestilence to conceited symbolic film-language and impervious chiffres! I'll no longer have a mind for that! Léos Carax, did you ever think about, that a dialogue in a film could be natural and vivid??? Maybe I'm too common to understand you? Or had it been your task to confirm all the clichés of a Frenchman the world can have? Guillaume the to-be-guilliotined comes to his home-palace, Mme. Deneuve, not in the picture, plays the flute: "Here am I, darling!" In this moment, I knew, that she's in the bathtub, and we`ll see her lying in there soon. Don't misunderstand me, I'm not prudish, and the incestous sex scene was the climax of the film. But this is, in Berlin, we say "etepetete", what means something like "être-peut-être", a snobistic, self-satisfied, and, the worst, seen that often in French movies I can tell! Other example: She, beautiful and willing, is looking at herself in a mirror, combing her hair, and her wild-bearded, dirty young guru rushs into the room, breathless shouting: "There's no escape, there's no escape!" Forty years after existencialistic Sartres and consorts- what's new, what's exciting about? My God, there's that woman and she loves and admires you, what would be more natural to be happy with your life? And when you're not, please explain much better, why!! Born French means you have to live a life in extravaganza, no escape, is that the point?