A baroque sci-fi movie by Leos Carax about a dangerous virus in an abstract Parisian future.
Card sharp Alex makes money doing card tricks on the street and spends his spare time with his girlfriend, Lise. He is contacted by Marc and Hans, well-known criminals and friends of his late father. They have borrowed a large amount of money from a mysterious female criminal, «the American.» France is in danger from a strange virus that infects those who have sex without emotional involvement. Marc and Hans decide to steal the recently discovered antidote to this merciless disease from a laboratory and they need Alex’s help. He agrees, driven not only by the desire to earn some money and change his life but also because he has fallen in love with Anna, Marc’s young girlfriend.
Cinematographer Jean-Yves Escoffier, who worked with Carax on his first movies, created the «new baroque» visuality that can be seen most clearly in Bad Blood. It comprises an excess of red in the shot, symbols and symmetries, and a deliberately excessive experimental montage. The baroque alternates with ascetic shots of a mythical Paris in the grip of unusually hot weather and the virus, which is synonymous with another virus that kills lovers—HIV. Halley’s Comet is flying overhead, as it actually did in 1986, and its appearance denotes a fateful time of wonders.
This is the second film in the Alex series with Denis Lavant playing the imaginary alter ego of director Leos Carax. Lavant’s performance is exceedingly physical, sometimes deliberately theatrical and sometimes involving unexpected boyish outbursts. Alex, who is torn about his feelings for Anna, sets off on a dancing run through the empty streets of Paris to David Bowie’s «Modern Love.» This gesture became legendary. Noah Baumbach reproduced it in Frances Ha, where Greta Gerwig’s character flits through New York’s streets to the same music. This modern love shifts the ground beneath Alex’s feet, and Leos Carax created the screen embodiment of these seconds.
Bad Blood was in the main competition of the Berlin Film Festival in 1986 and was awarded the Alfred Bauer Prize for opening new perspectives on cinematic art.
The film will be shown in French with Russian subtitles.
Bad Blood
Director Leos Carax
France, Switzerland, 1986. 116 min.
18+