MovieChat Forums > Les amants du Pont-Neuf (1999) Discussion > my interpretation. much darker.... *spoi...

my interpretation. much darker.... spoilers

posted 17 years ago by withnail69
7 replies | jump to latest

I find the scene where Michelle is seen entering the apartment block of the eye surgeon and then the appartment and we hear her cat miowing very dark. I thought the director was trying to show us something else. Otherwise I couldn't see the point of this scene. Was there really an eye disease? Was there really an eye surgeon? Was Michelle just entering her own flat? The expressions on her face we very scary. The radio was broken just before we hear an announcement looking for Michelle. Was she just playing out a rich girls fantasy?

[–] jasongrimshaw 16 years ago

"Was she just playing out a rich girls fantasy?"

Absolutely not. On the radio we hear that there is an operation to save Michelle's sight. Now 3 years later she is still attending the clinic (it's a surgery not an apartment). The film does not specify whether she is still being treated or something else... a relationship with the surgeon?

When she meets Alex on the brisge at Christmas and hears the bell tolling she says she has to leave but doesnt specify why. Carax doesnt answer this question, but Michelle was not living a rich girl fantasy..

[–] withnail69 16 years ago

well then IMO there had to be a relationship with the surgeon in order for her cat to be there.Why else would her cat be at an eye surgery unless she was living there or knew him extremely well

[–] andes200 15 years ago

I do not think she was dreaming a rich girl world. It is possible that there was no procedure for her eye problem. Then, as an artist, whose life would be destroyed for becoming blind, and also who takes lots of decisions by inspiration, on the spot, without much planning, she decides to go homeless.

There must have been a relationship with the surgeon. For me it makes senses also because at the time she hears 3am bells, she wants to go home, not to a hotel to spend the night with Alex. She says "things have changed, please dont make me tell you tonite". Reason being, there's a guy waiting for her. It is possible that she fell "in love" with the surgeon for giving her vision back. We also know that she prefers some comforts like a good bed, and such, when she saves the stolen money for the winter. It makes sense that she goes back to her way of life (rich or not), once the eye problem is solved (the primary reason why she went homeless).

However, the relationship with Alex was much more real, and sound, she easily gives up comforts to be with him. She recognizes that those conforts do not make her happy. What is interesting to me is that it is not the other way around. He does not want to give up his way of life in order to be with her. which tells me something about women flexibility in contrasts with mens fixed ways.

[–] Shadow1517 15 years ago

not to mention that Alex at one point was willing to give up HER happiness just for her to be with him trying to hide her potentially eyesight saving operation from her.
I found this to be a horrendous thing, but that's what I loved about the movie, it is incredibly romantic and everyone discusses it in this way, but it quite frequently shows just how destructive these two can be to one another.

[–] Xcalat3 15 years ago

very interesting theory

When there's no more room in hell, The dead will walk the earth...

[–] lightningcows 11 years ago

I sense I got was that the problem with her eyesight was more of a physical manifestation of a psychological issue, similar to how the limping and later, the broken hand, on Alex is a physical display of his addiction to drugs, alcohol, and then Michele. Somewhere near the beginning Alex is following Michele around, and mentions that he thinks that her eyesight is going bad because of her obsession with Julian. I tend to think that the eye doctor was actually Michelle, herself, and she initiated her own "repair" like how the bridge was repaired at the end of the film.

[–] alex-ehlke 11 years ago

It seemed to be before the office was open, she had keys to the office, and her cat was living there. There's no crazy conspiracy here, she was in a relationship with the doctor. She was living with him.

She relied on Alex to see through him once she would become blind. She relied on Hans to see the painting. Then, all in different ways, she relied on the doctor to see physically. In the end she goes off to see the world with Alex again.

Each of the relations are complementary. She helps Alex like himself through her love but also by having Alex see himself in a different light in her paintings. Hans's heavy eyes see her nude once as closure before he offs himself. The painting Hans brings her to stares back at her. The doctor achieves notability for having her as his guinea pig patient with her rare disease that he cures. Etc.

The story is simple, but there is a lot going on in this film even without grand theories about plot twists that aren't there.

my interpretation. much darker.... *spoilers*

my interpretation. much darker.... spoilers