DramaRomance

Pola X

- An erotically charged descent into madness.

A writer leaves his upper-class life and journeys with a woman claiming to be his sister, and her two friends.

Release Date : 1999-05-12

Language :French

Adult : false

Status : Released

Production Company : ARD DegetoArena FilmsCanal+Pandora FilmThéo Films

Production Country : FranceGermanyJapanSwitzerland

Alternative Titles :

Cast

Character Name : Pierre

Original Name : Guillaume Depardieu

Gender : Male

Character Name : Isabelle

Original Name : Yekaterina Golubeva

Gender : Female

Character Name : Marie

Original Name : Catherine Deneuve

Gender : Female

Character Name : Lucie

Original Name : Delphine Chuillot

Gender : Female

Character Name : Thibault

Original Name : Laurent Lucas

Gender : Male

Character Name : Marguerite

Original Name : Patachou

Gender : Female

Character Name : Razerka

Original Name : Petruta Catana

Gender : Male

Character Name : La Petite

Original Name : Mihaella Silaghi

Gender : Male

Character Name : Le Chef

Original Name : Šarūnas Bartas

Gender : Male

Character Name : Fred

Original Name : Samuel Dupuy

Gender : Male

Character Name : Présentateur TV

Original Name : Mathias Mlekuz

Gender : Male

Character Name : Chauffeur de Taxi

Original Name : Dine Souli

Gender : Male

Character Name : Augusto

Original Name : Miguel Yeco

Gender : Male

Character Name : FIls du Patron du Café

Original Name : Khireddine Medjoubi

Gender : Male

Character Name : L'Ami Roumain

Original Name : Mark Zak

Gender : Male

Character Name : Femme du Chef

Original Name : Anne Richter

Gender : Male

Character Name : Policier

Original Name : Myriam Defremont

Gender : Male

Character Name : Policier

Original Name : Michel B. Dupérial

Gender : Male

Character Name : Policier

Original Name : Pascal Parmentier

Gender : Male

Character Name : Policier

Original Name : Jean-Jacques Colin

Gender : Male

Character Name : Musicien

Original Name : Bill Callahan

Gender : Male

Character Name : Musicien

Original Name : Mario Gremlich

Gender : Male

Character Name : Musicien

Original Name : Bobo

Gender : Male

Character Name : Musicien

Original Name : Kerstin Fischer

Gender : Male

Character Name : Musicien

Original Name : Tom Liwa

Gender : Male

Character Name : Musicien

Original Name : Thomas Klein

Gender : Male

Character Name : Musicien

Original Name : Peter Sarach

Gender : Male

Character Name : Musicien

Original Name : Fritz Wittek

Gender : Male

Character Name : Musicien

Original Name : Till Lindemann

Gender : Male

Character Name : Musicien

Original Name : Steve Donnelly

Gender : Male

Character Name : Musicien

Original Name : Christoph Schneider

Gender : Male

Character Name : Musicien

Original Name : Stefan Claudius

Gender : Male

Character Name : Musicien

Original Name : Stuart Grimshaw

Gender : Male

Character Name : Musicien

Original Name : Roland Hoppner

Gender : Male

Character Name : Musicien

Original Name : Markus Kirschbaum

Gender : Male

Character Name : Musicien

Original Name : Axel Neumann

Gender : Male

Character Name : Musicien

Original Name : Martin Siry

Gender : Male

Character Name : Musicien

Original Name : Julia Zanke

Gender : Male

Character Name : Musicien

Original Name : Kersten Ginsberg

Gender : Male

Reviews

CRCulver

@CRCulver

2021-06-23

When Leos Carax's film POLA X premiered in 1999, it was seen then as part of the New French Extremity movement, with critics and audiences picking up on its unsimulated sex scene. Yet that forms only a brief few minutes of quite ample film. Two decades on, audiences of today ought to look past the sensation and appreciate the film for what it really has to offer: a convincing contemporary take on Hermann Meville's psychological novel PIERRE, and the way Carax interweaves Melville's structure of 19th-century wealthy elites with harrowing references to contemporary France, Bosnia and the plight of Balkan refugees. The son of a deceased diplomat of some note, Pierre (Guillaume Depardieu) lives in splendor in rural France, in a manor house with his widowed mother (Catherine Deneuve). Things are going well for young Pierre: a novel he has written has become a bestseller and he is engaged to the lovely Lucie (Delphine Chuillot). But then he encounters a mysterious woman named Isabelle (Yekaterina Golubeva) who tells him in broken French that she is his half-sister, born to Pierre's diplomat father and an unknown Balkan woman. Isabelle is in fact less a character and more a spectral presence that haunts Pierre's life. Intrigued by this otherworldly creature, Pierre gives up his privileged existence and enters into a vividly depicted bohemianism that brings about his physical and mental decline. POLA X prefers to tell its story more through visceral images than dialogue. In fact, the dialogue is deliberately stilted, allowing the film to dip in and out of its basis in Melville’s 19th-century novel. So much of the story of Pierre's decline is told through the bucolic idyll of the first half of the film and the brutal squalor he later chooses. This imagery is so strong that even if POLA X feels somewhat too tentative about itself to rank as one of the all-time greatest films, it has haunted this viewer's thoughts since watching it. Another nice touch of POLA X is the close way in which Carax worked with the composer of the film's score Scott Walker, who was then fresh from his acclaimed album TILT. When Pierre leaves home after meeting Isabelle, he enters into a bizarre community of artists in an industrial setting, who seem to be hiding sinister plans behind their avant-garde work. It is here that Walker's score goes from the subdued strings of the first half of the film into brasher, more aggressive sounds. Carax has set things up so this music is both diegetic and non-diegetic, part of the outside narration of Pierre's psychological decline and contemporary political strife as much as the film's action itself.