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Pola X
1999 134 min France, Germany, Japan, Switzerland 18+
★6.4
Drama, Romance
Director: Leos Carax
🎭 Based on
«Pierre; or, The Ambiguities»
byHerman Melville
Trailers
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Description
A writer leaves his upper-class life and journeys with a woman claiming to be his sister, and her two friends.
Budget:
$11M
Worldwide:
$791,919
Starring
Guillaume Depardieu
Actor
Yekaterina Golubeva
Actor
Catherine Deneuve
Actor
Awards
Cannes Film Festival 1999
— Palme d'Or
Key opinion
Pola X is a polarizing and visually arresting adaptation of Melville's work that functions as a deeply personal, often incoherent confessional for director Leos Carax. While many admire its raw emotional intensity and atmospheric beauty, others find the protagonist's descent into ruin to be illogical and frustratingly opaque.
| Acting | Guillaume Depardieu delivers a raw and emotionally charged performance that serves as a powerful anchor for the film's descent into instability. | |
| Cinematography | The cinematography masterfully employs a structural contrast between the bright, ornate idyll of the first act and the dark, suffocating industrial squalor of the second. | |
| Screenplay | The film's dense, symbolist approach and reliance on subjective logic result in a narrative that many find incomprehensible or lacking in essential plot clarity. | |
| Runtime | The two-plus hour runtime, combined with a stagnant and heavy-handed stylistic pace, rewards viewers seeking a meditative experience while alienating those who find it exhausting or pretentious. |