Mauvais Sang ** (1986, Michel Piccoli, Juliette Binoche, Denis Lavant, Hans Meyer, Julie Delpy) – Classic Movie Review 11,701

The 1986 film Mauvais Sang [The Night Is Young] [Bad Blood] is a weird, dark gangster crime thriller from France’s 80s wunderkind writer-director Leos Carax (in his second film after his 1984 first feature Boy Meets Girl) about rival gangs plotting to get their hands on a new medical culture that counters a dreaded sexually-transmitted disease called STBO (cue AIDS fears) that is sweeping the country.

The cast raises the temperature a little: Denis Lavant and Juliette Binoche, as a petty criminal and the young woman he is after, plus Michel Piccoli and Hans Meyer as their partners in crime, and Julie Delpy.

An American woman (Carroll Brooks) blackmails two aging crooks, Marc (Michel Piccoli) and Hans (Hans Meyer), into stealing the serum, locked in an inaccessible government building. Marc recruits rebellious teenager Alex (Denis Lavant), who spurns his girlfriend Lise (Julie Delpy) for Marc’s young lover Anna (Juliette Binoche).

Mauvais Sang is partly an homage to French New Wave cinema and other cinema icons, in a jazzy mish-mash of Jean-Luc Godard, Charles Chaplin and so on through the dossier of film worthies so admired by the French, with striking lighting and visual effects.

Jean-Yves Escoffier’s cinematography and the iconic soundtrack (including David Bowie’s ‘Modern Love’, Benjamin Britten and Sergei Prokofiev) are both outstanding.

Mauvais Sang is a cult success, but it is all pretty flashy and empty. It is the winner of the 1986 Prix Louis-Delluc (Louis Delluc Prize} for Best Film, but, though it was nominated for three César Awards, it won none.

The title refers to a poem by Arthur Rimbaud in A Season in Hell.

Also in the cast are Hugo Pratt as Boris, Mireille Perrier as the young mother, Serge Reggiani as Charlie and Jérôme Zucca as Thomas.

Carax reunited with Lavant and Binoche for Les Amants du Pont-Neuf (1991).

Alex Christophe Dupont (born 22 November 1960), known as Leos Carax, is also known for Pola X (1999), Holy Motors (2012) and Annette (2021). His professional name is an anagram of his real name Alex and Oscar.

 © Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,701

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