90. Ne Me Quitte Pas &...

Lyrics

Ne me quitte pas
Il faut oublier
Tout peut s'oublier
Qui s'enfuit deja
Oublier le temps
Des malentendus
Et le temps perdu
A savoir comment
Oublier ces heures
Qui tuaient parfois
A coups de pourquoi
Le coeur du bonheur
Ne me quitte pas (4 fois)

Moi je t'offrirai
Des perles de pluie
Venues de pays
Où il ne pleut pas
Je creuserai la terre
Jusqu'apres ma mort
Pour couvrir ton corps
D'or et de lumière
Je ferai un domaine
Où l'amour sera roi
Où l'amour sera loi
Où tu seras reine
Ne me quitte pas (4 fois)

Ne me quitte pas
Je t'inventerai
Des mots insensés
Que tu comprendras
Je te parlerai
De ces amants là
Qui ont vu deux fois
Leurs coeurs s'embraser
Je te racont'rai
L'histoire de ce roi
Mort de n'avoir pas
Pu te rencontrer
Ne me quitte pas (4 fois)

On a vu souvent
Rejaillir le feu
De l'ancien volcan
Qu'on croyait trop vieux
Il est paraît-il
Des terres brûlées
Donnant plus de blé
Qu'un meilleur avril
Et quand vient le soir
Pour qu'un ciel flamboie
Le rouge et le noir
Ne s'épousent-ils pas
Ne me quitte pas (4 fois)

Ne me quitte pas
Je ne vais plus pleurer
Je ne vais plus parler
Je me cacherai là
À te regarder
Danser et sourire
Et à t'écouter
Chanter et puis rire
Laisse-moi devenir
L'ombre de ton ombre
L'ombre de ta main
L'ombre de ton chien
Ne me quitte pas (4 fois)

The English translation of this lyrics can be found in the video above. As one can see a lot of time has passed between this post and my previous one. That's partly because I am busy looking for a job, partly because I couldn't find the movie I was planning to link this song too. I decided I had to find a French romantic movie about involving regret and desire that was full of grand operatic gestures. After some searching I chose Leos Carax' Lovers on the Bridge (1991). I was quite excited to see the movie. The only previous Carax film I had seen was Holy Motors, which I utterly loved. Lovers on the Bridge though apparently cannot be found anywhere in the Netherlands, and I also couldn't find it anywhere online (without downloading torrents and such stuff). So eventually I chose the movie that seemed to be the closest in spirit to Lovers on the Bridge. 

The Movie: Mauvais Sang (Leos Carax, 1986)

Mauvais Sang, literally translated as Bad Blood is the movie Leos Carax made before Lovers on the Bridge. It also stars in Juliette Binoche and Denis Lavant the same two main actors as Lovers on the Bridge. It's strange that I could find Mauvais Sang so easily on DVD in the Netherlands, while Lovers on the Bridge is somehow extinct here. As far as I know Lovers on the Bridge is by far the more famous film. I also assume that Lovers on the Bridge is a for more accessible film than Mauvais Sang to general audiences. This is a downright strange movie. 

Anyone who believes that art is above all about personal expression must see Mauvais Sang. This is a movie that Leos Carax clearly made purely for himself. To me Mauvais Sang feels like a movie that answers the following question: What if a young French Romantic existentialist chose to make a heavily stylized movie that combined the aesthetics of the silent melodramas of the early days of cinema with the aesthetics of the crime movies of the French New Wave, while at the same time dealing with some of the main anxieties of the 1980's? It's also one of the best examples I've seen of Roger Ebert's famous saying 'It's not what a movie's about, it's how it's about it'. What the film's about is quite easy to explain and will sound familiar to everyone who has seen more than 10 films in his life. Two seasoned crooks, and a young girl in love with one of them try to execute a heist. They used to be three crooks, but their safe opener has now died, so they enlist the help of his son who has ceased to speak to his father a long time ago, but has the same quick hands. While preparing the heist the young boy and girl gradually grow closer to each other. So far so good, you may think. This is one of the most archetypal setups ever. 

What this crew wants to steal though is a newly isolated drug culture that can treat the new sexaully transmitted disease called STBO, contracted when one has sex without feeling love. This is the kind of slightly dopey idea only a young hopeless romantic would think of, but the connection to the 1980's panic about AIDS is quite obvious. An American gang is also after this drug culture that belongs to a giant international conglomerate housed in a giant skyscraper such as the ones we often see in New York. Considering the movie takes place in Paris, the movie also touches on concerns/ideas that globalization is essentially Americanization and that American capitalism is going to become the dominant system in the world. These were of course popular ideas in 1986, when Reagan was in the middle of his presidency and it was becoming clearer and clearer that the Soviet Union was declining. 

It's not that the rest of Paris here looks like the Paris we know. The city is filmed in an expressionistic way that often reminded me of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Most of the movie takes place on the street where our crew is planning from and Carax at no point even tries to make it seem as a real street. It's filmed and lit in such a way that it is always clear that we are watching a film set. This is a very theatrical movie, which is also visible in the acting of Juliette Binoche and especially Denis Lavant. Interestingly the older actors, act in a way that's more familiar to modern audiences. I have seen Lavant only in two movies now, this and Holy Motors, but I already think he is one of the greatest living actors. You could call him a French Robert De Niro, only if De Niro acted in the pre- 1930's. But calling him that would not be fair to Lavant. I prefer De Niro, but Lavant is a totally unique actor. In any case Carax even further emphasizes the connection of Mauvais Sang to silent cinema during a couple of short, silent, black-and-white sequences, which seem to come straight of a one-reeler from the earliest days of film.

The isolated drug culture, by the way, could be called a McGuffin. A McGuffin is, as I have written earlier on this blog, the thing that sets the plot in motion. Therein lies the problem of calling the drug a McGuffin. There is hardly a plot to speak of in the movie. It's above all interested in creating a mood and an atmosphere, and in letting Lavant and Binoche discuss the complexities of love and life. Being 25 I fully understand how that was very appealing to a 26-year old Leos Carax. So I quite liked the movie a lot; I love/like stylized movies in general. I will never completely connect to/love this movie though. It's sensibilities are entirely different from mine. And I can see quite easily why others may hate it. It's definitely not for everyone, nor is it meant to be. If one doesn't like it though, one shouldn't complain that it doesn't work. Carax doesn't give a shit whether this movie works or not. Besides how can you possibly judge whether it works or not? There is nothing else to judge it against. Mauvais Sang is completely singular. And having just seen two movies of his, I am very eager to see other things Carax has made.