Pola X (1999) directed by Leos Carax

Summary: A young writer gets intrigued to a dark hair girl who claims that she is his long-lost sister. They develop a unusual relationship and eventually crosses the line of brotherly love, promoting a down-road spiral involving his domineering mother and innocent fiancé.

Recently I saw Pola X (1999) directed by Leos Carax. The film is based on a novel written by a American writer Herman Melville, “Pierre, or the Ambiguities.” First thing to say, I liked the film a lot. I am confident enough to say that I am a Leos Carax fan. I started watching this at like two in the morning planning just to watch half of it, but as the film proceeded, I could not take off my eye from it.

What I liked about it so much? First of all, the cinematography is absolutely beautiful. Not only about the looks, but I was especially amazed by Carax’s ability to craft images with scrupulous attention in every gestures, sound of the steps, intensity of light, tempo and camera movements to create a meaning, or mood in each frame. What’s magnificent about it is that the coherence of images are so perfectly orchestrated, because all the elements I just mentioned were so meticulously tuned in to a beautiful flow of images. Especially, how they illustrated the theme of the film. “ambiguity,” in the visuals was just perfect. I honestly could not believe how he could pay a tension in all those elements when he is directing! I’m not trying to exaggerate. It’s probably the dexterous work of the film crew, and it’s wonderful. It’s worth watching just looking at those crafts of mise-en-scene.

The story explores a controversial theme, incest. I didn’t mind it at all. The story is dark and sad, but amazingly mysterious and enticing. Exploration the topic of incest, the film takes us to a mystery of life where we are not familiar with and makes us anxious causes fear. The film is not fast, but it’s so visceral. Pola X gives a scene of fear of the unknown, or the alien and we are forced to constantly confront with this. Interestingly, this fear of the unknown could be the strong implication of political fear in France. According to Michael DeAngelis, “Carax's film has concerns in territorial isolation and the threats and realities of invasion, implicating French culture historically, politically, and culturally by relocating Melville's land narrative from America to France.” What makes this film fun to watch is that the images always challenges us to interpret its implications. I highly recommend it and I am going to go head and watch some of his other films.

Work Cited

DeAngelis, Michael. "Inverting French Heritage Cinema: Melville, Carax, and Pola X." Film Criticism 27.1 (2002): 20-35. Film & Television Literature Index with Full Text. EBSCO. Web. 4 Nov. 2010.