Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.

"Here we are still alone. It is all so slow, so heavy, so sad. Soon I will be old, and it will at last be over."

Scanning Paris, stated in a painful monotone that is obvious homage to Alpha 60 in Godard's Alphaville, this voiceover guides us into the first feature film written and directed by boy genius Leos Carax. He wrote it when he was 16, rewrote it after meeting actress Mireille Perrier, and finally directed it at the age of 22. Boy Meets Girl would forever curse the future works of the young Cinema de Look director, becoming the high-water mark that his other films could not surpass.

Boy Meets Girl (1983-84) is a story about youth, love, life, being on the outside looking in... Alex (Denis Lavant) is an outsider alone in Paris. He views life as a spectator, studying people for the sake of curiosity and knowledge as if others' moments are films to be experienced. Alex feels closer to people when he's out of their lives because then he doesn't have any distractions or distortions. However, that isn't to say that he's never experienced his own moments. On a secret map of Paris in his apartment he records the locations, dates, and persons involved during his first-times - first kiss, first lie, first cheat, etc. It's as if Alex tries to study his own evolution without directly becoming involved in his actions or environment.

When Alex spoke of himself in the context of a story about his ex-girlfriend, he said:

"I don't try to change. She didn't get it... that I kept tabs on my cowardice, on my weaknesses. I like to spy on myself as if I were a foreigner... a foreign body, as scientists say. If I changed, I'd destroy the experiment."

Mireille (played to perfection by Mireille Perrier) is a woman that's not as content with loneliness as Alex is. She wants help - not wishing to die, yet constantly attempting suicide. She yearns for revived attention from her lover Bernard, but he skipped out, leaving her to dwell.

One night, Alex overhears the final demise of Mireille and Bernard's relationship while strolling the streets of Paris. He hears the despair, the poetry, and the disgust of the apartment intercom breakup and decides that he wants into this woman's life.

Boy Meets Girl would mark the true beginning of Leos Carax's artistic journey. In it (more so than in his previous shorts like Strangulation Blues) we see the foundation of his trademark style, poetic realism - which basically means romantic, cynical, pitiful fatalism adopted from the French movement in the 1930s. Granted, Boy Meets Girl is far less poetic than say Bad Blood, but the foundation is there. Visually, this film, more than any of Carax's others, looks and feels like a movie straight out of the French New Wave (Nouvelle Vague).

Within the enclosed interview conducted by scholarly Lincoln Center critic Kent Jones, Leos Carax reveals that he shot Boy Meets Girl in black and white to cover up any mistakes made during his first movie. Of course, critics might take that deeper than it is, pointing out that the black and white shows further homage to French New Wave auteurs. Believe you me, the nods to predecessors are there, just not as deeply wrapped around the film as some would like to think.

Cinematographer Jean-Yves Escoffier works extremely well with the high definition black and white, proving once again that he's one of the best, if not the best DP's of his generation. Without his help here and in all three Alex Trilogy films, Carax would've had a hard time finding a photographer to visually match his writing and directing prowess. In the featured interview (DVD), Carax speaks about meeting Escoffier and discovering Denis Lavant from files at an unemployment agency.

The flavor of this film is peculiar and tragic. The audience, like Alex, views the happenings from a calculated outside-look. During moments of importance, extras freeze around focus areas while our attention is drawn to a specific conversation or action. This device feels awkward at first, but stimulating and useful at second glance. Also (as poetic realism often does) Boy Meets Girl oozes a feeling of depression from beginning to incredible end. That said, I am more than willing to temporarily sacrifice "happy" feelings in the name of enrichment and retrospect. Just make sure that you are willing to do the same.

That isn't to say that Boy Meets Girl is an all out droop-fest - there's plenty of lefthanded humor thrown in for those willing to find it. In a way, Carax makes fun of his own poetic narrative during a handful of instances. For example, as Alex walks the lonely streets of Paris listening to a David Bowie love ballad, he comes across two lovers kissing each other with that long, dramatic, drawn out screen kiss that we are so accustomed to seeing on film. Briefly studying the couple in their decidedly forced melodramatic moment, Alex tosses them a coin for a show well done. Of course the humor of this is short-lived. While the audience chuckles, we almost overlook the fact that the kissing female stares blankly over the shoulder of her lover - something is terribly wrong and superficial about this street show of passion. There are lighter comedy elements tossed into the mix - a good example being when Mireille doesn't hear Alex's thoroughly polished and poetic pick up line, forcing him to repeat what only works when said spontaneously.

The Fox Lorber DVD contains a Pola X preview, Lavant/Perrier/Carax filmographies, and the fifteen-minute interview conducted by Jones that I previously mentioned. The digital transfer of the film was supervised by Escoffier (Carax never rewatches movies he made).

If you are into classic cinema and film movements, check this one out. Boy Meets Girl is a cornerstone of the French neo-New Wave (Cinema de Look), and critically acclaimed as one of the best films of the 1980s. If nothing else, watch it to see the beginnings of Leos Carax, cursed genius auteur of generation-x.

4.5 STARS

Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age