It has been a long time since I was totally baffled by a film. I recall a fateful day in film school being subjected to Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt, which inspired me to seek out my T.A. and say something like, “Why, and… but why though? I hate.” Her response, though short, grew alarmingly impatient. To paraphrase: “Why should all films be the same? Why would you even want every movie to tell a story? Cinema has many uses, and has been used, for such a variety of expressions! Not every viewing experience should be a pleasant one. Sergei Eisenstein said something like ‘Cinema should be like a pool cue repeatedly jabbing its audience in the forehead!’” I’ll admit it. She frightened me.
She had made a crucial point, however, to understanding the art of cinema. Gradually, with every classroom screening, the way I watched movies changed drastically, and it has only made me love them more, and made me love more of them. I’m sure my colleagues on this site share in my drooling study of images, sounds, and edits that might hold significant clues to the filmmakers’ intentions. We don’t do this to find something that isn’t there. We do this because it is all part of the game. A film, especially one made by a crafty director, is bound to have so much more to say in its formal elements, than in its dialogue. It’s a beautiful thing, and whether I like a movie, or not… I usually have something to say about it when it is artfully rendered.
Then… Le Pont Du Nord walked into my life.
I won’t presume to tell you I understand every little thing about every movie I see, but even someone as slow as I am, staring glassy-eyed at a movie screen can typically have something figured out by the time the credits roll. Typically…
Mother and daughter actresses, and co-screenwriters (Bulle Ogier and Pascale Ogier) play Marie and Baptiste. Marie, arriving in Paris, just after her release from prison, has developed an extreme case of claustrophobia. She wanders the streets, homeless, passing the time between meetings with her mysterious lover, Julien (Pierre Clementi). Baptiste, a seemingly nomadic punker, rides through Paris on the lookout for agents of some kind of conspiracy, but mostly spends her time gouging the eyes out of poster ads with a humungous pocketknife. Baptiste, convinced meeting Marie is fate, begins following her, and the two of them start unraveling an enigma when they discover a kind of game board drawn over a map of Paris in Julien’s briefcase.
I heard that premise, and I was stoked. Baptiste rode her scooter around Paris, noticing… something in a bunch of lion statues in sequences scored by fantastic, consequential music, and I was still stoked. Somebody gets shot and Baptiste starts practicing karate with someone who has been keeping surveillance on her throughout the whole movie, and then it ends… and I was no longer stoked.
Though I am still convinced this is one of Jacques Rivette’s (of The French New Wave) failed experiments, I will say that, with the few interesting things which stood out, the movie did manage to stay with me. I really grew fond of Marie and Baptiste while they went on their little journey, and so many of the film’s images continue to haunt me like unused puzzle pieces. Why so much construction? Really, why so much destruction? The film constantly stages its scene in Parisian ruins, new and old. Why does Baptiste reference Babylon in the first line of the movie? Why the hell does Baptiste work through Kata Patterns with a man she never trusted at the end of the movie? These disparate strands just never tie together.
If nothing else, I think the best thing a movie can do is be unforgettable. I have enjoyed and understood many less challenging movies better than Le Pont Du Nord, but would have to work very hard to remember some of them in detail. Although I believe Rivette’s ideas are not well communicated in this work, it did at least successfully tempt me to figure them out. Whether he failed as a director, or I failed as a viewer, his movie succeeded in making me think. Perhaps neither of us failed.
Also… there seems to be a lot going on with Paris neighborhoods and architecture shifting… and I know even less about the Paris of 1981 than I do about Paris today.
THE PACKAGE
The movie was shot on 16mm, and looks about as good as it can in this Blu-ray transfer.
I was expecting to rely on smarter people to explain this movie to me in the special features. Silly me.
Mapping Le Pont Du Nord, An Image-Essay By Roland-Francois Lack: The movie was challenging, but this “essay” seems totally pointless. Can homeboy get a thesis statement?
Composites, A Video-Essay By Gina Telaroli: A more interesting experiment, but…not helpful or very interesting.
Fortunately for me, it did come with a booklet which ends with a REAL essay by Dennis Lim, who rather brilliantly and briefly ties all the ideas, some that I had caught and some that I had missed, together like poetry.
