Sorry, this movie sucks

Simply Perfect

Fantastic!

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

With his second feature Mauvais Sang, Leos Carax blends the standard genre conventions of the heist film and the disaffected youth film. These generic conventions allow Carax to take a shortcut in providing the basic elements of plot and character so that he can focus on stylistic innovation. The result is a poetic, dazzling film packed with memorable visual touches and camera-work. Particularly exhilarating are the frequent point of view shots, especially the ones that involve characters on motorcycles. A few of the bolder shots, such as one in which the camera spins toward abstraction as it covers the scattered lights of a cityscape at night, would not seem out of place in an experimental film by someone such as Stan Brakhage. Yet the plot, which concerns a young man's attempts to steal a serum that will help him earn a large sum of money so that he can move to a new town and begin a new life, is actually a bit too perfunctory and becomes bogged down as it spends too much time on a rather uninteresting relationship he forms with one of his accomplices' mistress. Nevertheless, this early effort from Carax hints at the potential that later films such as The Lovers on the Bridge would more thoroughly fulfill as it offers a certain unpolished charm all its own.

A few years ago, I came across a PAL VHS copy of Leos Carax's debut feature, BOY MEETS GIRL (1984), and now that I've caught up with the rest of his filmography, I regret passing on it...! BAD BLOOD promises to be several things – a treatise on a society coming to its first realization of the ravages of a sexually-transmitted disease (read AIDS), a caper movie involving the stealing of a highly-requested anti-"AIDS" serum, etc. – but ends up being a romantic love story and a vintage Hollywood pastiche of sorts: Carax admitted in an interview that the film was inspired by the Alan Ladd/Raoul Walsh actioner, SALTY O' ROURKE (1945)! The film has a good mix of veteran (Michel Piccoli and Serge Reggiani) and upcoming talent (Juliette Binoche and Julie Delpy) but the main character is played by Denis Levant; curiously enough, he dies in this one but in Carax's following movie, THE LOVERS OF THE BRIDGE (1991; also with Levant and Binoche), the main character sports the same name of the one Levant plays here and, as a matter of fact, Binoche also makes references to Julien and Marion who also "feature" in LOVERS!! Actually, it appears that Carax's first 3 features are supposed to be taken as a loose trilogy.While BAD BLOOD isn't a total success, it is occasionally quite inspired: when David Bowie's "Modern Love" blurts out from the radio, Levant goes out dancing in the streets (pun intended) but his exuberant dance routine is soon cut short when Binoche turns off the radio; a completely irrelevant sepia-tinged sequence of a gamine and her little child is set to the strains of Charlie Chaplin's score from THE KID (1921); Piccoli and Reggiani's first meeting in an airfield becomes a pantomime routine akin to Silent slapstick comedies; and, most hilariously, an American thug also after the serum mistakes a fellow diner in a restaurant for Jean Cocteau but when Levant tells him that Cocteau is dead, he deadpans: "No…look..he's moving!".

This is the best film in Love trilogy of Leos Carax. Leos Carax said he is always interested in Greek mythology. He successfully showed that Greek mythology in this film through a main character, Denis Lavant. He has the Oedipus complex about his father, but his father are killed by someone. And, father's friend looks for Alex to get a help for a crime. Also, he is falling in love with a mystery woman. However, she loves father's friend. Thus, he has the Oedipus complex about father's friend again even though his father died. And, he commits a crime with father's friend. This film shows fantastic images and perfect performance by Juliette Binoche, Denis Lavant and Michel Piccoli. The ending scene is unforgettable.

You would not see such a treatment to a film in mainstream Hollywood, perhaps not even in independents. There are all the elements of a gangster movie and then some: the fall guy, the family talk, the villains visit (the boss is an American woman), the secret ploy, the deftly heist, the car (and motorcycle) chases, and flying of bullets. Writer-director Leos Carax spared no expense in delivering his stylish French gangster film with pizzazz - he included a bold parachuting from a plane aerial sequence, all this in addition to his usual stock of heart and soul characters, and graphic cinematography with visual poetry. The central pursuit of love is never left out in a Carax story. In fact we have more than double dosage here: Denis Levant's Alex has Julie Delpy's Lise faithfully haunting him, besides his loving attraction to Juliette Binoche's Anna, who is hypnotically in love with Michel Piccoli's veteran gangster Marc. Carax's script and dialogs are well polished (the subtitles did do justice). There are mentions of Haley's Comet; repeat references to hot weather; hi-tech allusions of "Darley-Wilkinson" with moneymaking "STBO" cure to a deadly virus. There is a certain playfulness to the tone of the whole film: besides demonstrations of Alex's ventriloquial skill, there are love interludes; pop music delivery with frames of Levant's foot a-running and dancing; casual sing-alongs in a convertible during an escape; undying exchanges while gut's a-bleeding; Hans Meyer, playing Marc's partner Hans, provided dashes of humor through his presence. This is definitely a film to appreciate. "Mauvais Sang" was made in 1986 and many of its elements and scenes were mimicked in later Hollywood/independent flicks, affirming the creative genius in Leos Carax, a French filmmaker extraordinaire. Thanks to Landmark Theatres in the Bay Area, foreign film goers in San Francisco were given a chance to see all four of Leos Carax feature films. Bravo!