This is a short film, I'm sorry because I haven't seen it, but it was shown at the Fantastiqe d'Avoriaz Film Festival, and it was Luc Besson's debut film.
1983 Dernier combat, Le last combat
Besson's breakout film was 1983's The Last Combat. It seems to be a film about the future, but the world in the film does not see the continuity of human society in the present, and there is a great deal of imaginative allegorical pessimism about the future of mankind.
1985 Subway
Next up was a thriller set in the Paris subway, Subway. Imagination remains the biggest feature of the film, and it shows the idiosyncratic thinking and imagination of Besson, who only came into contact with the subway as an adult. The story takes place in the complex and vast space of the Paris subway, where Fred robs Helena's husband's safe and escapes into the subway, thus befriending the rollerblading kid, the drummer John Doe, and others who have been living in the subway for a long time. Fred approaches Helena for the money to redeem the documents, and Helena's husband's gang of henchmen and the police are after Fred. Helena grows to love Fred as she searches for him to retrieve the papers, while betraying more and more her class and life circumstances. Fred grew up with a voice injury that prevented him from singing and has always wanted to form a band. With the help of his fellow subway riders, Fred manages to organize a band, and he also robs a money carrier and uses the money to secure a subway gig. As the band sings "guns don't kill people, peoples kill people," Fred falls at gunpoint, and Helena, rushing to the scene, kisses him for the first and last time in tears.
The movie is called "Subway" and most of the scenes are in the subway. Besson succeeds in showing the living space and the small, independent world of the subway. Fred breaks into this small world and immediately realizes that this place is more suitable for him than the ground, and this latecomer never goes out of the subway from the moment he enters it until he finally dies in the subway, handing himself over to this mysterious subterranean world without any reservation. Obviously, Besson uses the self-contained world of the subway as a metaphor for the non-mainstream alternative people in the society, and the life of never conforming to the rules and rock music are the typical characteristics of this small world. Almost all the characters in the movie have ambiguous pasts and live only in the present, except for Helena, played by Ajani, who comes from the past to the present. This kind of psychological and temporal level of expression makes the movie only in a state of surface description, unable to deeper characterization, which is almost the biggest weakness of Luc Besson. The main characters in the movie are unreal, and their surrealism cannot win the audience's approval. On the contrary, a few supporting characters are very interesting: the rollerblader kid, the drummer played by Reynolds, the florist who appears from time to time, and the sheriff's two henchmen - one is called "batman" and the other is called "batman". "and Robin, etc. Together, these supporting characters make the whole world of the subway a very interesting place. Together, these supporting characters complete the subway world and make the movie more entertaining, but they also reveal Besson's intentional whitewashing of this alternative world. The result of this balancing act is that the subway world is more banalized and more acceptable to society "on the ground". From the music in the movie, we can see that although the lyrics of the band's performance at the end of the movie are "guns don't kill people, people kill people" and other "cautionary" phrases, the music is similar to the melody of pop songs by the Hong Kong band "Wen Na". Although the lyrics of the band's performance are "cautionary" phrases, the music is similar to the melodies of Hong Kong's "Winners" pop songs. On the one hand, he emphasizes the alternative color of his personal world, but on the other hand, he packages it in a way that is easy to accept, which is Besson's "Subway World".
It's also a quirky movie in terms of genres: thriller, police procedural, romance and music, and Besson shows his familiarity with and admiration for Hollywood's various genres. Possibly, such a combination makes one compare it to the films of Spain's Almodóvar, but Besson is far from having the poignancy and intensity of A.'s work and its realistic, twisted depiction of real life. If Ah's work is surrealism, Besson's Metro is just a packaged, chaotic, unreal dream.
1988 Grand bleu, Le (The Big Blue)
In 1988, Luc Besson directed one of his early films. Besson directed the most successful of his early films, The Big Blue. Jack and Asher grew up on the shores of the Greek sea and became the best divers in the world. Jack's mother left the father and son at an early age to return to the U.S., and his father was killed in a diving accident in front of Jack, creating a strong incentive for Jack. Asher finds Jack and wants him to compete in the diving championships as well. Joanna, a New York insurance woman, becomes very interested in Jack after seeing him dive and tracks him down to the championships. Jack is very successful at the championships, and his friendship with Asher is renewed, and his love for Joanna has grown to the point of no return. However, Jack is still just as attached to the sea and his friends in the sea, the dolphins. Jack rushes to New York to meet Joanna, but the call of the sea and the dolphins often unsettles him. On a dive, Asher has an accident, and Jack sadly sends Asher's body into the deep sea. From then on, Jack becomes even more disoriented, as if he is no longer human, but a free dolphin in the sea. At the end of the movie, Jack is about to dive into the sea when he hears the news that his wife, Joanna, is pregnant, and after gazing fondly at her, he leaps into the night sea, following the dolphin's call and disappearing into the dark waters.
This movie can be said to be Besson's work of fame, from childhood memories and dreams full of the author's endless deep feelings, this sincerity touched the hearts of all viewers. A lot of beautiful underwater photography in the movie shows the mysterious and deep underwater world, which makes the audience very happy. The slightly comedic characterizations are not vulgar and gimmicky, but rather confident and refreshing. The taunts about the dilemmas of people living in the United States and New York are also characterized by typical European pride, in stark contrast to the wide-open, bright seaside scenery. This film is one of Besson's finest. It can be seen that Besson in the film into some of his own childhood experiences and teenage dreams, successfully portrayed a sea as home, dolphins as a friend of the young diver Jack Majors image, the film has a large number of beautiful underwater photography, expressed Besson's own love of the sea. The film won Best Sound and Best Music at that year's Cesar Awards. After being warmly requested by many viewers, Besson later released a three-hour version with a lot of shooting material, including this extra-long version, which was seen by 2 million viewers in the Paris area. Suffice it to say, the movie was a brilliant success.
1990 Nikita
After a gap of more than two years, Besson returned with another masterpiece, Nikita. A couple of hoodlums rob a store and get into a firefight with the arriving police. Only one of the criminals, a woman, survives, but she is also sentenced to life in prison for shooting a policeman. The French secret police transform Nikita into a secret assassin working for the state. Nikita re-enters society with a new identity and a new lover and life, but this new identity also brings her both lies and bloodshed. At the end of the movie, Nikita takes off after completing a major mission.
The film's main plot and structure are by no means perfect, and are even a bit loose, which should be a real handicap for a commercial movie. Nikita's clandestine training and missions are not intrinsically linked, and become isolated "life stories". The changes in Nikita's thoughts and behaviors during the various periods of his life are neither delicately depicted nor y understood. All the inner twists and turns are masked by a perverse external behavior, which, apart from a principled explanation, is more often ambiguous and more or less bluffing.
The beginning of the film is a success, with the intense drumming with its African overtones not only introducing a group of street thugs into a frenzy of behavior, but also serving as a sound signature for the thrilling action scenes throughout the film. In this black passage where everyone dies, the main character, Nikita, only appears in the last few shots, but the extremely black psychology and behavior of the film makes for a tense and questionable start. The next few scenes at the trial and in the courtroom depict Nikita's wildness to the fullest. The sentence of life imprisonment also tells the story in a way that seems to be at the end of the line; Nikita seems to have no way to overturn the sentence anyway, and the whole movie will develop on this narrow path, with Nikita always in an isolated and dilemma, thus pushing the plot development and the conflict of the characters' inner contradictions to the extreme.
Nikita is always alone, life seems to her to be full of pain, and enduring pain is the main content of her life. Neither during her special training, nor after she rejoined society, nor even after she found a man who loved her, could quell that pain. This is the sadness of Nikita and the sadness of this society. Nikita constantly tries to find human warmth and is constantly disappointed. On her birthday, Special Training Instructor Bob takes her out to dinner and her birthday present is an instruction to kill; she travels on vacation with her boyfriend, only to be sniped and assassinated in the hotel bathroom, and Nikita struggles with her desire for calm happiness and unspeakable pain. It's almost a dead end: Nikita is supposed to be a prisoner for life, and this life where she can touch happiness but never gets it is almost more unbearable than any imprisonment.
The final result of the movie is, really, a bit of a no-brainer: Nikita walks away. Can it really be that simple? While such an outcome certainly frees Nikita from the depths of her misery, is the situation really that simple, then she doesn't even have to be on a mission at all, and this kind of government behavior is almost out of control. It's a good thing that the nearly 100-minute movie is already driving the audience crazy along with Nikita, and the audience's self-carried emotions make them forget about Nikita's black past, and all of them come together to rejoice in Nikita's deliverance. The audience, under the director's guided and deliberate portrayal, appreciates and understands the crime on behalf of the society. From this point of view, the director succeeded in his purpose, and this is one of the movies in which Besson exposed the characteristics of Hollywood.
1991 Atlantis
Besson made a personalized production of Atlantis, which he not only directed, but also directed the cinematography and editing, but unfortunately the film did not make a big impact.
1994 "Léon, the Killer"
Besson struck again in 1994 with "Léon, the Killer" (This Killer is Not Too Cold). Leon, who came to France from Italy to make a living, has always been a lonely killer for hire. Until one time, he opened the door of his room to save a little girl who was in danger of death, and the two of them began to rely on each other from then on. Leon teaches her "killing techniques", she teaches Leon French, and the two grow close. When the crazy cop who killed the girl's family finds the two of them, Leon dies with the cop after a bloody battle.
The Italian killer's life in the United States is a rare subject in French cinema. We seem to find about a hint of it in Martin Scorsese's American Italian neighborhood gangster flicks. In this new era of blockbusters, Besson, out of the pursuit of entertainment, focuses on, handles and images in a style completely different from Martin's New York social realism, filling the movie with more exciting scenes of gun battles and explosions. Although the movie is entertaining with sensory stimulation and exaggerated caricatures, it is the unique portrayal of the two main characters that succeeds, with a subtle romance that we can't force on Hollywood action movies.
Renault as the "cool" killer Leon, the inner loneliness and pain are externalized into cold and numb demeanor and self-enclosed trench coat and sunglasses, this kind of look can be found in Alain Delon's heyday of the French gangster film based on the "Lone Ranger," "Killer Jeff," and so on (this topic will be covered in the future). gangster movies). The comparison shows that New Age cinema emphasizes an externalized, flat, concise and extreme style of imagery. Leon's thinking is simple and stubborn in the modern society, and his behaviors make him look like the coolest redneck in the city - if he didn't have the ability to kill people instantly, he would be a pure gangster If he didn't have the ability to kill people instantly, he would be a pure urban farmer. The simple and closed life style and emotional support make this exaggerated character closer to the audience's heart, the coldness of the killer and the simplicity of the hick are so natural that it is no wonder Leon calls his job "cleaning work". In Leon's mind, killing is just a job, just as mundane and inescapable as farming and labor. This is Leon's way of life, and his emotions are also so closed and numb. The movie vaguely reveals a piece of Leon's "love history" that year, which allows us to speculate on the reason for this closure. After the appearance of the same lonely girl, Leon begins to recover his dead emotions, which are symbolized by the famous flower pot in the film.
The role of Natalie Portman, a young child star, may not be much of an attempt to expose the realities of French society; it's clearly a script maneuver with speculative tendencies. However, the character is loved by teenage fans around the world and is able to reflect a universal social problem.
In this caricature of a movie, Besson not only creates extremely strong characters and delicate emotions, but also creates unforgettable gunfight sequences, which is one of the major reasons for the movie's worldwide success. Leon's entrance is pre-emptive, condensing the momentum with a killer's skill that is hard to miss. In the middle of the movie, Leon shows his deep "professional theoretical foundation" in the basic class of assassin, which solidifies his position in the hearts of the audience. The scene that establishes Leon as a "top master" is the one where he takes down the DEA building in ten minutes and rescues his young lover from the police, with the demeanor of a general who has killed Hua Xiong with a warm cup of wine. In the last scene of the movie, Leon alone against the police more than two hundred people, although dead, but the fierce will to live on, to achieve brilliant fame. These passages are well-layered and skillfully designed, which is an excellent example of the structure of an action movie. Audiences clamored to see this exotic Hollywood-style blockbuster that featured both furious gunfighting scenes and a tender, ambiguous love affair between young and old. The stars, Reynolds and Portman, became world-class icons.
1997 "Fifth Element, The Fifth Element"
If Besson is going to Hollywood step by step and declaring war on Hollywood with his own personal style of blockbusters, then the 1997 film "Fifth Element" can be said to be the fruit of Besson's peacemaking with Hollywood. Not only is the film mode completely Hollywoodized, but the story takes place in New York City, and it's Hollywood star Bruce Willis who saves mankind and the planet. The movie is still about saving the planet, an old theme that is almost laughable in the movie when the government gives Bruce Willis a mission, and Willis' expression clearly says "Here we go again, I'm tired of it. It's been a tiring couple of years for Willis, saving America and the planet on a regular basis, and New York alone a couple of times. The good news is that this is an entertaining movie, and the ability to laugh is a selling point. Aside from some unique imagery about the future that shows traces of Besson's persona, the movie can be classified in a long line of Hollywood-produced sci-fi films. The visual effect of the whole movie is also quite "blockbuster", the design of the future city, the future of the guns and arms, the shape of the universe characters and so on are consciously and unconsciously imitating the American classic science fiction film. But regardless, the film became the French box office champion in 1997, grossing more than $200 million worldwide and winning the technical prize at the Cannes Film Festival.
1999 Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc, The Joan of Arc
Nearing the end of the century, Besson suddenly pulled off a big-budget costume film, Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc, operating in the mode of a Hollywood epic. Knowing that both Dreyer and Bresson's "Joan of Arc" are insurmountable peaks in the history of cinema, and that Besson's French predecessor, Jacques Rivette, made a version just a few years ago, and that the American version has just been completed, did Besson have what it took to challenge these masters? That's the question on the minds of almost all viewers and critics.
In 1429, a young French girl, Joan of Arc, after seeing her family brutally murdered by the English, and after experiencing mysterious visions, declares to the public that she has been instructed by God to lead the French army to repel the English. Charles, the Dauphin of France, at his mother's urging, received Joan of Arc and handed over a large army to Joan of Arc to lead. Inspired by Joan of Arc's divine performance, the French army was invincible and miraculously repelled the English, and Charles was crowned in victory. When the king ascended the throne, he was obsessed with making peace, and Jeanne d'Arc was set up to fall into the hands of the English army. In the end, Joan of Arc was accused of being a witch and burned to death by the English authorities.
This seems to have been Besson's customized film for his lover Jovovich, whose lavish costumed spectacles served as an ideal backdrop for Jovovich to show off his "acting chops". From the beginning of the film's dramatic twists and turns, the creation of a mysterious atmosphere, until the confrontation between the British and French armies, Besson has been busy portraying the external image of Joan of Arc and the miraculous deeds. As in Nikita ten years ago, Besson left the task of portraying the character's inner self to the actresses, allowing them to perform ambiguous "nervousness," "panic," "madness," and other external behaviors, and even more so to the actresses. They are allowed to perform ambiguous "nervousness", "panic", "madness" and other external behaviors, and the task of interpreting the inner motives of these behaviors is given to the audience. Such a single extreme approach does not result in a deeper revelation of the character's inner workings, but is more like a simple treatment of a character's inability or inability to portray him or her.
Like the U.S. version, Besson spends a great deal of time describing Joan of Arc's first two battles with the support of the King of France, and emphasizes Joan of Arc's miraculous role on the battlefield as a spiritual commander. Instead, not enough attention is given to Jeanne's interrogation process in the face of death and God, and it is clear that Besson does not want to look to his movie industry predecessors, Dreyer and Bresson. There's a fine line between saints and madmen, or so Besson thought. Beyond that, there's not much to say about the movie, and we're treated to a lavish, turn-of-the-century French Cecil B. DeMille-style extravaganza. By the way, the final appearance of Dustin Hoffman as God's messenger is Besson's "special treatment" of Joan of Arc.
The tenth movie was Angel A, Luc's last film.
]Angel A - Luc Besson's black and white romance
◆ Title: Angel-A / English: Angel-A
◆ Producer: Luc Besson
◆ Director: Luc Besson
◆ Screenwriter: Luc Besson
◆ Lead: Jamel Debbouche (Jamel Debbouche) Jamel Debbouze Rie Rasmussen
◆ Genre: Comedy Romance
◆ Country: France ◆ Language: French
◆ Distributor: Europa ◆ Premiere Date: 12/21/2005
Production House: TF1 ◆ Production Cost: N/A
◆ Site Rating: N/A ◆ Box Office: N/A
◆ MPAA Rating: N/A ◆ U.S. Box Office: N/A
◆ Running Time: N/A ◆ Overseas Box Office: N/A
◆ Official Website: / ◆ Trailer: /video/2005-12/22// content_5879240.htm
Movie Story
This is the story of a man who never knew love, looking for love. A 'Chaplin'-style disillusioned man meets a blonde beauty on the Seine River, and two people from different worlds stage a bizarre black comedy in the 15th arrondissement of Paris.
Luc Besson is finally back in the director's chair, having appeared as an 'executive producer' since 1999's little-received 'Joan of Arc', while running his own 'Europa' company, launching the 'Taxi' series which, although a huge commercial success, was not praised by French critics for its artistic merit. Luc Besson's earlier works, such as Subway and Grand bleu, were so independent that the César jury hailed them as the birth of a genius. Leon profess Killer Leon / this killer is not too cold" at the same time in the United States and France, also became the classic collection of countless fans of the disk, but the French film critics only hit him pass, that he is losing the early humanistic side of the concern. Sure enough, Luc Besson was on a downward spiral after 'The Fifth Element', and 'Joan of Arc' became a commercial production with empty spectacle, wasting the magnificent background subject matter and Malkovich. 'Europa' Europa company in the film production and distribution, basically go to Hollywood set of operating methods, and did achieve commercial success, into the global market, including this year's Jet Li's 'Danny the Wolfhound'. Under the cultivation and encouragement of Luc Besson, young directors such as Louis Letterie have grown up rapidly to create their own commercial movie path. Besson himself, as France's most internationally influential commercial director and producer, finally released this black-and-white feature film six years after the fact, using Jamelle, one of the most unconventional comedians in French cinema today, to reorganize his directorial career. This isn't the first time Besson has used black-and-white film, either; 22 years ago, "Le dernier cambat le final battle" was an independent exploration of that year's upstart.
Cast-wise, Jamel hasn't been the first lead in years, either, although he impressed as the little dude in "Amelie Angels Love Beauty" and as the Egyptian architect in "Mission cleopetra The Queen's Mission," but as a leading man it's still only the '99 comedy "Le ciel, Les oiseaux, et ta mere The Sky, the Birds, and Your Mom". An innate talent for comedy, coupled with a distinctive accent of foreign origin, has helped this unassuming Moroccan boy establish himself in French cinema, and even more so as the most successful Arab immigrant since Zinedine Zidane.
The actress, Luc Besson gave up years of beauty Milla Jovovichi, and chose Rie Rasmussen, who is also a model, and who has only appeared in two feature films and one short film, and whose temperament is more in line with the film as can be seen in the stills.