Pola X (1999)

Director:

Leos Carax

Writers:

Leos Carax (writer)
Jean-Pol Fargeau (writer)

Release Date:

12 May 1999 (Belgium)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Plot:

A young writer becomes intrigued with a mysterious dark-haired woman who claims to be his long-lost sister and he begin an unusual relationship with her prompting a downward spiral involving his domineering mother and lovely fiancée

Plot Keywords:

Publisher | Long Lost Sister | Secret | Writer | Dream

Awards:

2 wins & 2 nominations

Cast

Guillaume Depardieu	...	Pierre
Yekaterina Golubeva	...	Isabelle
Catherine Deneuve	...	Marie
Delphine Chuillot	...	Lucie
Laurent Lucas	...	Thibault
Patachou	...	Margherite
Petruta Catana	...	Razerka
Mihaella Silaghi	...	The Child
Sharunas Bartas	...	The Chief
Samuel Dupuy	...	Fred
Mathias Mlekuz	...	TV presenter
Dine Souli	...	Taxi driver
Miguel Yeco	...	Augusto
Khireddine Medjoubi	...	Cafe owner's son
Mark Zak	...	Romanian friend

Also Known As:

Pierre oder Der Kampf mit der Sphinx (Germany) (TV title)
Pierre ou les ambiguïtés (France) (TV title (longer version))

Runtime:

134 min

Country:

France | Switzerland | Germany | Japan

Language:

French

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital | DTS

Certification:

USA:Not Rated | Iceland:16 | France:U | Portugal:M/16 | Sweden:15 | Switzerland:16 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:16 (canton of Vaud) | UK:18 | South Korea:18 (edited version) | Germany:18

Filming Locations:

Gladbeck, North Rhine - Westphalia, Germany

Company:

Arena Films

Trivia:

The "X" in the title represents the number of drafts the script went through.

Quotes:

Margherite: Be careful! You dream of writing a mature work, but your charm lies in your thorough immaturity. You dream of setting fire to God knows what, of rising above your times like a dazzling cloud, leaving everyone terrified and admiring. But you weren't born for that, Pierre! You don't even believe it yourself.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The Killing Floor (2007)

Soundtrack:

Zai Na Yao Yuan De Di Fang

Yeah, Yeah... Let's watch people think

Take about 1 hour from this film and we might have something really worth watching. Starts with one of the most impressive visual starts for a film I've ever seen but goes down hill real quick. There's also a great computer generated dream sequence. All the characters are mysterious so it takes a few days to figure out what you saw and even then you still will not really understand the motivation for some of them. It's too bad because there's some very good working material here. Add a rather explicit love scene (with body doubles doing the hard work) and some overall oddness and you've got your basic French art film. Yeah, yeah....