The Lovers on the BridgeThe world looks different as the light begins to fade, like observing a painting in a museum by single candlelight. For an artist like Michèle Stalens (Juliette Binoche), this unwelcome change to her perception sets off a series of events which lead her to a life of vagrancy on the Pont-Neuf, described as the oldest bridge in Paris, currently under reconstruction. It is here where she formally meets Alex (Denis Lavant), a fellow vagrant and erstwhile street performer--hooked on alcohol and sleeping drugs provided by his "bridge-mate", Hans (Klaus-Michael Grüber)--and their relationship begins over a portrait she did of him, thinking he was already dead.
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Michèle and Alex are both haunted by their individual terrors, and engage in a co-dependent relationship, finding one another virtually at rock bottom. The Pont-Neuf they call home mirrors their inner state; when Michèle moves onto the bridge, it is composed of decrepit masonry, surrounded by the skeletal framework of scaffolding, as though it were but a husk of its former self, not unlike the wrecked Michèle and Alex. Michèle cries out for a former lover, Julien (Chrichan Larsson), who has rejected her and leaves her racing through the metro at the sound of his cello. Whatever anxieties dominate Alex are less defined, but he is obsessive about Michèle. He stalks her in the streets of Paris as she draws pictures of the passersby, shambling along on the crutch provided following an accident at the beginning of a movie, where a car runs over his ankle and he is too drunk to notice. Alex wants Michèle to notice him, and her interest is first piqued when he sees him performing as a "fire eater" as part of the celebration for France's bicentennial. But Alex's performance is filled with a kind of sadness; his gesticulations and movements are wild, as though his dance was one of protest, still resembling a destitute wino, pulling a gulp from his bottle before spewing it forth in flame, full of rage.
The Paris depicted in The Lovers on the Bridge (titled Les Amants du Pont-Neuf in France) is not the romantic vista from postcards or travelogues; it is very urban, where homelessness and drug addiction are facts of life for Alex and his kind. Alex is picked up following his accident by a "drunk bus", where--as one passenger observes--the police are "picking up the empties, the bottles and the bodies". Alex and Michèle share in common at their core a suffering, a pain which they try to stifle with plastic bottles of cheap wine. They lose themselves in drink, and dance madly, with reckless abandon upon the empty Pont-Neuf to a discordant harmony of music which seems to be heard solely in their alcohol-riddled minds, as fireworks shoot off all around them, celebrating their independence from the trappings of the rest of the world. They only have one another, and for Alex, this is his paradise; let nothing tear it asunder.
But all parties end, even those of Michèle and Alex, whose jealousy becomes one more crippling vice, such as when Hans takes Michèle to the museum at night to see her favorite painting before her sight is finally stripped away from her. He suffers from his sense of inevitable abandonment, and greets her return with a slap, leading to a physical altercation reminiscent of the inebriated flailings of the residents of the drunk tank at the police station earlier in the film. He keeps secrets from her--I suspect he wasn't fully able to kick his sedative addiction, although Michèle tries to teach him how to sleep without them--and he casually manipulates events to keep her close, such as when he pushed her painter's tin full of money close enough to the edge of the balcony so that her exercising would cause her to knock it into the water. So terrified is Alex of losing his love that he even destroys the posters her family begins to post following her extended absence, which claims that her eyesight can be restored. It is a selfish, destructive love which cannot be sustained, not unlike an addiction.
Like the Pont-Neuf, Alex and Michèle are undergoing a dramatic restructuring of their selves. It is a painful transition, which propels them along a course of extreme emotions. There is great joy in their playful diversions, such as hijacking a speedboat, and water-skiing along Seine. The duo decide to use the sedatives Hans provides to drug patrons at a cafe, so they may steal their money. Although Michèle and Alex do not appear to genuinely care for the money, there is a sense that they have a disdain for the Parisians, who seem perfectly content to let them (and those like them) rot in the dark alleys of the city. Even Hans warms to Michèle, following her assertion that she has as much right to stay on the bridge as he does. Hans offers a cautionary warning to her, seeing the shadow of his late wife in her, to avoid the call of drugs and alcohol to quell her suffering, as it was a substitute for love which ultimately ruined Hans' wife. There is the sense that Michèle might be somewhat schizophrenic, following a scene where she believes she has shot Julien with the gun she keeps in her tin, only to observe to Alex later that she is not missing any bullets--an observation which is already suspect, as they are both plastered on cheap wine at this juncture.
The whole of The Lovers on the Bridge could be seen as a metaphor for addiction. Following Alex's arrest and incarceration, time passes and Alex gets cleaned up, only for Michèle to revisit him once again. She talks of how nothing is irreparable--although Alex's self-mutilation with the purloined pistol would suggest otherwise--and the two reunite on the refurbished bridge on Christmas Eve in a scene somewhat reminiscent of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. There are times in everyone's lives where they are afflicted with an overwhelming sense of pain from a transformative experience. It can be hard--if not impossible--to go through it alone; but one should be conscientious of the difference between supporting one another or enabling them; that is the message in The Lovers on the Bridge.
Recommended for: Fans of a romantic drama about co-dependence and overcoming the suffering of the past. It is a story about lovers who have to relearn what it is to love themselves, and not just try to fill the void.
The Paris depicted in The Lovers on the Bridge (titled Les Amants du Pont-Neuf in France) is not the romantic vista from postcards or travelogues; it is very urban, where homelessness and drug addiction are facts of life for Alex and his kind. Alex is picked up following his accident by a "drunk bus", where--as one passenger observes--the police are "picking up the empties, the bottles and the bodies". Alex and Michèle share in common at their core a suffering, a pain which they try to stifle with plastic bottles of cheap wine. They lose themselves in drink, and dance madly, with reckless abandon upon the empty Pont-Neuf to a discordant harmony of music which seems to be heard solely in their alcohol-riddled minds, as fireworks shoot off all around them, celebrating their independence from the trappings of the rest of the world. They only have one another, and for Alex, this is his paradise; let nothing tear it asunder.
But all parties end, even those of Michèle and Alex, whose jealousy becomes one more crippling vice, such as when Hans takes Michèle to the museum at night to see her favorite painting before her sight is finally stripped away from her. He suffers from his sense of inevitable abandonment, and greets her return with a slap, leading to a physical altercation reminiscent of the inebriated flailings of the residents of the drunk tank at the police station earlier in the film. He keeps secrets from her--I suspect he wasn't fully able to kick his sedative addiction, although Michèle tries to teach him how to sleep without them--and he casually manipulates events to keep her close, such as when he pushed her painter's tin full of money close enough to the edge of the balcony so that her exercising would cause her to knock it into the water. So terrified is Alex of losing his love that he even destroys the posters her family begins to post following her extended absence, which claims that her eyesight can be restored. It is a selfish, destructive love which cannot be sustained, not unlike an addiction.
Like the Pont-Neuf, Alex and Michèle are undergoing a dramatic restructuring of their selves. It is a painful transition, which propels them along a course of extreme emotions. There is great joy in their playful diversions, such as hijacking a speedboat, and water-skiing along Seine. The duo decide to use the sedatives Hans provides to drug patrons at a cafe, so they may steal their money. Although Michèle and Alex do not appear to genuinely care for the money, there is a sense that they have a disdain for the Parisians, who seem perfectly content to let them (and those like them) rot in the dark alleys of the city. Even Hans warms to Michèle, following her assertion that she has as much right to stay on the bridge as he does. Hans offers a cautionary warning to her, seeing the shadow of his late wife in her, to avoid the call of drugs and alcohol to quell her suffering, as it was a substitute for love which ultimately ruined Hans' wife. There is the sense that Michèle might be somewhat schizophrenic, following a scene where she believes she has shot Julien with the gun she keeps in her tin, only to observe to Alex later that she is not missing any bullets--an observation which is already suspect, as they are both plastered on cheap wine at this juncture.
The whole of The Lovers on the Bridge could be seen as a metaphor for addiction. Following Alex's arrest and incarceration, time passes and Alex gets cleaned up, only for Michèle to revisit him once again. She talks of how nothing is irreparable--although Alex's self-mutilation with the purloined pistol would suggest otherwise--and the two reunite on the refurbished bridge on Christmas Eve in a scene somewhat reminiscent of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. There are times in everyone's lives where they are afflicted with an overwhelming sense of pain from a transformative experience. It can be hard--if not impossible--to go through it alone; but one should be conscientious of the difference between supporting one another or enabling them; that is the message in The Lovers on the Bridge.
Recommended for: Fans of a romantic drama about co-dependence and overcoming the suffering of the past. It is a story about lovers who have to relearn what it is to love themselves, and not just try to fill the void.