Watch The Lovers on the Bridge For Free

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Absolutely the worst movie.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

After Leos Carax's 1986 film Mauvais Sang (come on Miramax release it!) Juliette Binoche begged her then lover and director to never film her as a Madonna again, and so the seeds for Les Amants du Pont Neuf were sown. Mauvais Sang features a luminous and fetishist Juliette Binoche as a mask like presence, with no physicality. This was carried thorough to the wonderful The Unbearable Lightness of Being, but Carax exploded the image in his film. The story is simple, two down and outs meet fall in love, yet despite the harsh realities of life, and love, on the streets they live out an exciting and romantic (in all the senses of the word) existence. This movie is relevant for its amazing visual and tour de force performances. Binoche is simply standout, she seems to live the role, something she later admitted deeply disturbed her. The film is fabulously directed from the grainy opening sequence to the amazing fireworks scene and the exhilarating conclusion. The film is littered with cinematic allusions from Truffaut Les Quatre cents Coups, to L'Atlante. In terms of context the film is amazing because it juxtaposes harsh realities, the opening sequence and fairytale like fantasy. We are led to question what is actually real, from Binoche apparently committing murder to the street littered with gigantic litter. In the end Les Amants du Pont Neuf is a film which needs multiple viewing and some explaining or knowledge of French New Wave cinema to be wholly comprehended, yet it is certainly accessible for the majority of casual cinema goers! The film, as I always predicted, is only now beginning to get the recognition it truly deserves. Binoche has avoided this type of movie since, although Michael Hanekes wonderful Code Unknown, though on a smaller and more subjued canvas, has many similarities. Roll on the US release of that one too. And Miramax, its about time you began releasing this type of movie on DVD, you're beginning to lag behind the other companies such as Fox Lorber and Criterion!

This "romantic" film was just so depressing and so unrealistic - it made it impossible for me to feel any sympathy or empathy for the 2 main characters and their desperate and desolate lives. I kept watching in the vain hope I'd find some redeeming feature but failed miserably. One has to have a touch of masochism to sit through this 2 hour endurance course! I came away with nothing that enriched my heart or mind in any way. It was just depressing watching these characters on their self-destructive binge! How love could sprout or thrive under such conditions and with such false motives is beyond me. One could only watch it in a detached way as it was just impossible to understand or identify with the main characters. Avoid it like the plague!

The final film of the Leos Carax trilogy, following Boy Meets Girl and Mauvais Sang. Here is what the art of film making is all about. The story of the doomed lovers who make their home on the Pont Neuf bridge, and who manage to find some sort of escape from their dark realities in each others company, is unforgettable. Denis Lavant, who appears in all three of the Carax trilogy, is great in his portrayal of Alex, the homeless street performer who falls hopelessly in love with a woman, who appears out of nowhere, to search for a place to sleep, and to hide from her own cruel reality. A painter, losing her vision, but still sketching all that she sees at a frenzied pace, as she knows that she soon will be no longer able to see. The film is so over-the-top romantic, as only French films can be. I had to write something here as a reaction to the bad reviews some gave this wonderful film. It actually saddens me that some people just can't see the magic here, and choose instead to take the film apart by challenging "the logic" of certain scenes and parts of the storyline. Searching for logic and plot holes in a film like this is so utterly ridiculous. Personally I don't go for romantic films, as they usually seem so contrived and phony. But "Amants du Pont-neuf" is such a strong film, and so utterly unique. This is an absolute classic of French cinema, and anyone who has a true appreciation and love for film should not miss this one. 10/10

Les Amants du Pont-Neuf is a brilliant movie. The film shows the essence of love not by a platonic sublimation of our flesh desires. No, the essence is revelled by showing this particular human felling blossom in the dirt of the street and the sour of the garbage. At the beginning you will be repulse by the sordid shoots and the vagrant lovers, but as the minutes pass on and the strange story is revelled a delicate beauty emerge from the rotten flesh, it is love itself, love that is not a mere act, not an image of the other but madness (the boy) and abnegation (the girl). This film is beautiful because it's forcing you to see beyond the material.The two actors put quite a show, Juliette Binoche is extraordinary in the sad role of an artist that slowly loses sight. Beside the catharsis the story is worth watching for the inedited light that is put on the pour illuminated life of the vagrants in a big city.