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Don't listen to the negative reviews

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

You have amazing scenes here. The energetic and nail biting heist scene, the sky-diving scene, and of course, the scene in which Chatterbox runs down the street to "Modern Love" by David Bowie. How shamelessly Noah Baumbauch stole this scene for Frances Ha, which compared to Mauvais Sang is a sophomore year, film school project. This is a master class in filmmaking. However, it's conversation scenes lag on for far too long, don't amount to much, and extend the run time of the film. It didn't need to be two hours.

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!".

Seems I'm in the minority here but I'll take it on the chin and won't open a vein just yet. Carax clearly has his admirers and we can only guess at the reasons. Mabe youthful rebellion against a mainstream way of telling a story; maybe disciples of the 'new'different-is- automatically-BETTER school. Who knows. I guess it's fair to say that I Endured this movie rather than Enjoyed it. Depending on your point of view Carax has an endearing and/or irritating habit of fading in the middle of a scene and then coming back to the same point. Why? You tell me. In its favor it does feature two of the now loveliest (in 1986 they were merely pretty) French actresses in Julie Delpy and Juliette Binoche plus two all-time great actors in Michel Piccoli and Serge Reggiani (albeit only a cameo for the latter) but against this it throws in one of those leading men who seem to get cast inexplicably given they lack virtually every criteria for leading men, I'm thinking of the two Vincents, Cassell and Gallo, Benoit Magimal et al. In this case it's Denis Lavant (a favorite of Carax) who resembles nothing so much as a sullen Russ Tamblyn and is one anchovy short of a pizza given that he starts out by dumping Julie Delpy, who is herself one egg short of an omelette by being head-over-heels in love with this yob in the first place. Plot? You don't want to know, believe me.

Having seen only his incredibly intense 1999 film, Pola X, I didn't exactly know what to expect with Bad Blood. The film is as a whole not as effective as the later film, but it serves to solidify Leos Carax in my mind as a truly great director. I love both films, and this one is definitely flawed, but the poetry which comes through onto the screen is absolutely incredible. Alex running down the street to Bowie, the motorcycle getaway, and the amazingly passionate and beautiful final scenes will remain with me for a while... the film is exquisitely wild and reckless and is truly innovative in the way it's put together. Even as I write this, shot after shot and scene after scene resurface in my mind, all of them worthy of mention, and all of them gorgeous and shattering in their own way. Carax is a deserving heir to the thrones erected by the new wave. Bad Blood is the work of a master, whether the film itself is a masterpiece or not... The characters are wonderfully crafted with very nice performances by everyone, it's very watchable and very human poetry of the highest calibre. See it, see a Leos Carax film, any of his films - I'm going to track down Boy Meets Girl and Lovers on the Bridge as soon as I can.