(1999, b/w; Le fille sur le pont, French, Italian) Turkish music bridges to the opening scene of a lengthy interview. "Everything I try goes wrong," Adele (Vanessa Paradis), a few months shy of being 22, confesses her bad luck to a female (psychologist, sociologist, lawyer?) questioning her in a room of people looking on. Relating her recent past after leaving school and her home, running off with a boy - believing that life begins with making love - followed by many other men, she summarizes her plight: "I get conned every day of my life."

Desperate, standing on the edge of the footbridge near the Eiffel Tower, on a winter night, she hears a man say: "You're about to make a mistake…. You're too young to be so sad." Gabor (Daniel Auteuil), a 40-plus cabaret artist, offers to hire her as his assistant in his knife-throwing act.

She jumps into the frigid waters of the Seine; he jumps after her. "It's difficult to say who rescued whom," he tells the paramedic in the ambulance. Director Patrice Leconte's edgy (rated R for romantic?) comedy, from Serge Frydman's screenplay, hurls daggers at our eyes and hearts, leaving us gasping (like Adele) from the simultaneous experience of fear and pleasure.

Convinced he has finally found his lucky charm, Gabor first proves to her that she has the gift of good fortune. As for the knives, not the thrower but the target makes all the difference, he assures her: "We'll kill them" (meaning the audience with her lovely figure and his skill).

Nonetheless, she has trouble resisting men - "It's like quitting smoking" - who come on to her.

With his faith in her, in order to get on the circus bill, he attempts something he'd never done previously: with Adele standing behind a curtain, he throws at her blindly. Gabor then sends her into a casino (from which he's been banned) to play roulette, concentrating on the lucky number he communicates to her telepathically.

In Italy they further test their luck on a raffle ticket, then in the car they win - "Luck is a matter of life or death" - on the road at night with the headlights off. Adele cautions Gabor: "Learn to lose, or you'll taking winning for granted." He replies, after telling her a story of his thinking others were enjoying better circumstances: "We always think luck is what we don't have."

Developing a passion for his blades just missing (occasionally caressing) her flesh, getting used to being lucky, Adele follows Gabor onto a cruise ship where she is pinned to the Wheel of Death. In an incredible coincidence, Takis, a newly wed Greek groom recognizes his lighter in Gabor's hand, which Adele had discovered on the side of the road in Italy; Adele then believes Takis is the one she's been looking for, Mr Right.

In Greece left alone again with her waterproof wristwatch and her sad eyes, she communicates her thoughts to Gabor in Istanbul, despondent over the loss of his touch, possessing only an old lighter and a torn bill from their days together.

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Copyright © 2009 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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