La Lune dans le caniveau

Jean-Jacques Beineix recently stated (transl.) "An auteur does not speak the truth" and here, within this enormously powerful film, he but flirts with reality, while most of the director's creative fires feed upon his singular employment of colour and set design. The style of Beineix, as a cinematic architect, may be designated as Rococo with, as he avers, a preeminence of (transl.) "atmosphere over narrative", fostering an element of whimsy, greatly enhanced by his recognition of a symbolic authority resting upon commercial advertising and its adjuncts. A studied development of exaggerated imagination marks the film, each frame being carefully composed for a production that originally extended to over four and one half hours, in the face of Beineix' assertion that he abhors filmic structuring. This organizational factor, at least in part, stems from an obligatory reflex of the director as recognition of the film's source, a novel by David Goodis, wherein the action occurs primarily at and about dockside Philadelphia, transferred here to an undesignated Marseille, and with the novelist's prototypical women intact, one, Loretta (Nastassia Kinski), angelic and carnally unattainable, ("you are pure" declaims Gerard Depardieu to her), the second, Bella (Victoria Abril) triumphantly lusty and possessed of will such as the work's protagonist, Gerard Delmas (Depardieu) apparently does not have. Delmas is compulsively drawn to the site of his sister's gruesome death by her own hand following her sexual violation, hoping to discover keys to what prompted her suicide, to the identity of her assailant, and to a rationale behind his own obsession. Thus is formed a basis for a plot, such as it may be, yet style is properly victor over substance with this undervalued and enigmatic piece that is nearly all filmed in studio, the greatest portion lighted by arcs and photo floods, with scoring contributed in elegant and operatically motival fashion by Gabriel Yared, and paced throughout, as Beineix describes it, with (transl.) "slow gestures forming the choreography."

Poor Gerard who has to put up with a dead sister, a crazy brother, a drunkard father, an overweight loud step-mother, a nympho of a lover and a beautiful wealthy woman. It all adds up to trash art by the master of high quality cinema, Jean-Jacques Beineix!

I saw this what ten years ago. It's timeless. A tale of intrigue. Not for those with limited attention spans! Nastassia's first appearance left me gasping. Lives interconnected, the rich in the playground of the working class. And that ice eating scene had me on the edge of my seat. So dark and challenging. Very few like this out there on the market. I am Glad it wasn't a hit - why spoil it with yet another US remake!!

I saw this movie in the early '80s and found it artsy and messy yet with staying charm. Have just seen it again on DVD and still like it. The disregard of reality and logic are almost Lynch-like. The cast is quite good, and the messy households are like something from A Streetcar Named Desire.

I dimly recall that director Beineix was going to follow this movie with an extravagant production of Marc Behm's vampire novel "The Ice Maiden." (Behm a favorite writer of mine.) But "Moon" bit the dust at the box office, and as a result, the "Ice" project got scrapped. Maybe it'll get made someday.

Per the 'Net, "Moon"'s much-in-evidence red car is an early '60s Ferrari 250 GT California Spyder.

Most printed words regarding this film is usually all negative. Criticisms for story and lack of coherence are usually the main issues. The film has has a sad reputation overall, but the atmosphere and cinematography makes up for any shortcomings in the script. The cast-particularly Kinski and Abril really make the film. Depardieu's dedication is serious enough as the lead protagonist. Check the works of Kinski and you'll find no other film of hers giving the aura and beguiling beauty display in The Moon In the Gutter. Regardless,the movie is better than most coming out these days. I would rank it highly with films like "Betty Blue" and the works of Almodovar and Polanski.Hopefully, a proper DVD issue of some kind is imminent.