“For his first feature, Jean-Jacques Beineix borrowed the formal innovations of the French avant-garde - Godard’s colors and conflicting tones, Rivette’s screwball thriller plotting - for a work of unalloyed entertainment, which was such a sharp commercial idea it’s a wonder no one had thought of it before. A young postal messenger who worships an American opera singer makes an illegal tape of one of her recitals; meanwhile, a dying prostitute drops a cassette of her tape-recorded confessions, which will help indict a drug ring, into his mail pouch. Beineix stays too close to the themes and emotions of the formula cult film - a morbid romanticism, a lingering cuteness - for the picture to take off into art, but any film with this much stylistic assurance is impossible to fully resist.” Reference: Dave Kerr. Chicago Reader. Online. http://onfilm.chireader.com Awards: French Academy of Cinema (Cesar) 1982: Best cinematography for Philippe Rousselot ; Best sound recording for Jean-Pierre Ruh ; Best music for Vladimir Cosma.
Credits: Producer, Irene Silberman ; director, Jean-Jacques Beineix ; writers, Jean-Jacques Beineix, Jean Van Hamme ; photography, Philippe Rousselot ; music, Vladimir Cosma, Alfredo Catalani, Charles Gounod ; art direction, Hilton Mc Connico.
Cast: Frederic Andrei, Roland Bertin, Wilhelminia Wiggins Fernandez, Thuy An Luu, Dominique Pinon, Richard Bohringer.
Content notification
Our collection comprises over 40,000 moving image works, acquired and catalogued between the 1940s and early 2000s. As a result, some items may reflect outdated, offensive and possibly harmful views and opinions. ACMI is working to identify and redress such usages.
Learn more about our collection and our collection policy here. If you come across harmful content on our website that you would like to report, let us know.
How to watch
Collection
In ACMI's collection
Credits
Collection metadata
ACMI Identifier
X000192
Languages
English
French
Subject category
Foreign language films
Sound/audio
Sound
Colour
Colour
Holdings
16mm film; Limited Access Print (Section 2)