From 1981 to 1994, a French film movement flared into life, baiting the critical establishment
and enthralling audiences before burning out.
This is cinema du look.
Just 10 films are typically identified as being part of the movement, made by three
directors: Jean-Jacques Beineix, Leos Carax and Luc Besson.
The genre was first defined by Raphael Bassan, in La Revue de Cinema.
He derided the films for being obsessed with visuals, coining the term cinema du look.
Casting a sceptical eye at the political and critical establishments in France, these three
young directors created films focussing on disenfranchised young people living at the
edge of society, falling in love in complicated, toxic relationships, and liberally plundering
pop cultural influences and visual styles.
At the heart of cinema du look is an obsessive focus on visual styling.
These films have a stylistic playfulness that’s more reminiscent of New Hollywood than New Wave.
It’s common to see strong colour washes, impressionistic splashes of light or gimmicky
devices like point-of-view shots.
Genre influences also abound, like the thriller setting of Diva, sci-fi styling of Mauvais Sang,
or Besson’s high octane action films.
Pop music and references to films and TV also recur, creating a collage-like feel that blends
highbrow and lowbrow culture.
Besson’s Nikita is a great example of this self-consciously poppy styling.
Nikita is a drug-addicted street punk who kills a cop during a pharmacy robbery.
Sentenced to life in prison, her captors fake her death and enroll her in a training programme
for assassins.
The film is shot with widescreen anamorphic lenses, peppered with chaotic gunfights and
cut together with rapid edits.
With its punchy action and featherlight assassin narrative, it’s no wonder that Besson quickly
became a Hollywood name; but the film’s plot is surprisingly subversive, showing the
mental toll of Nikita’s double life.
Nikita bounces between manipulative, unsuitable men before meeting Marco, who she falls in
love with; this element of romance is another key feature of cinema du look.
Whether thrown together by chance circumstance or playfully pursuing each other, the young
characters of these films fall hopelessly in love, often with dire consequences.
In Beneix’s film 37.2 Degrees Le Matin, the love affair between Zorg
and Betty takes centre stage.
Failed writer Zorg is working as a handyman in a resort when he meets Betty; while at
first their relationship is rosy, Betty’s mood swings and violent temper cause problem
after problem, and the couple flee from place to place while trying to sell Zorg’s novel.
With its meandering plot and long runtime, the film features a wide range of characters
and situations across mid-80s France, giving it an episodic feel.
But the thread that holds the film together is the tempestuous relationship between Betty
and Zorg.
Betty is consistently portrayed as hyperfeminine, like a character in a perfume advert.
Her deep, unsatisfied need for an ideal life, where Zorg is revered as the genius she sees
him as, and she is respected, is the cause of much of her fury.
Meanwhile, Zorg’s attitude towards Betty is also problematic; he conceals information
from her and blames her mood swings on ‘a monthly problem’.
Needless to say, some aspects of the sexual politics of this story have aged poorly; the
same can be said of much of cinema du look, especially in light of sexual assault allegations
against Luc Besson.
Betty’s anger doesn’t just stem from her relationship.
At times, she seems to be rebelling against society itself.
This sort of rebellion is another integral ingredient to cinema du look.
The protagonists of these films are often young people living at the edges of society,
using drugs, working low wage jobs or simply not working, living in pokey flats, cabins,
or literally underground.
Leos Carax’s Les Amants Du Pont-Neuf is a great example, following Juliette Binoche
and Denis Lavant as homeless people who meet by chance on a Paris street and sleep rough
on the Pont-Neuf bridge.
They drink, take sedatives, steal a police boat and break into apartments and art galleries;
their existence is all about transgression.
Carax is perhaps the most abstract of the cinema du look directors, and the film’s
rebellious nature stretches beyond its characters and into its style.
Chaotic montages of shaky camera and a mish-mash of pop music create uncomfortable, jarring images.
The film was produced alongside the French Bicentennial celebrations in 1989, which feature
heavily; as the great republic celebrates its long history, the tearaway protagonists sleeping rough
on one of its oldest landmarks embrace chaos on the edge of its society.
Cinema du look disappeared as quickly as it arrived, as each of the three directors departed
on their own career path: Beneix abandoned artifice in favour of documentary, Besson
moved to Hollywood, and Carax charted a more extreme course with his divisive Pola X.
But despite its short duration, the influence of cinema du look can be felt throughout French
cinema, particularly in the stylish work of filmmakers like Jean-Pierre Jeuenet and Christophe
Gans, and its focus on rebellion paved the way for a new generation of transgressive
filmmakers like Gaspar Noe and Xavier Gens.
For a movement sustained purely by style, that’s quite an achievement.