It's not me: a dizzying, very Godardian self-portrait by Carax (review)

Following a request from the Center Pompidou that was ultimately aborted, Leos Carax responded in the form of a captivating medium-length film to this abysmal question: “Where are you? »

It's not him, but still a little. Cinema is a beautiful lie, so, inevitably, the self-portrait lies. The Pompidou Center simply asked Leos Carax: “Where are you ?“The related exhibition not having taken place, the project comes to us as an orphan, in any case free from all decorum. The case is distantly reminiscent of an aborted exhibition by Godard in Beaubourg in 2006, of which only a joyful brothel disowned by the master The ghost of JLG also presides over the affairs of this deliberately quotable medium-length film.

It is as much the post-Godard period as the future of Carax that is questioned here. We see hesitations there. A young man, Carax himself, stumbling in front of a standing camera: “Me, young, running towards my destiny!“, we read. Connects the fabulous sequence of The crowd of Vidor, that of the boy who climbs this imposing staircase alone and frightened. Elsewhere still: “Cinema forgives everything“. Polanski's face will soon be superimposed several times: the great filmmaker, the criminal… The man? The artist? Carax doesn't bother with that… 44 minutes of vertigo where Boys Meets GirlOr The Lovers on the Bridgewhere Denis Lavant, young and older, runs, before Baby Annette advances by mimicry towards her destiny.

Carax also likes to say that he never shot a subjective shot for any of his films, before finding one, very much in love. In another Godardian impulse, the filmmaker is moved by the fact that the images, like our eyes, no longer blink. His film flashes well. Poetic and generous. And through incredibly dense and clear editing, a sense of dizziness occurs. It's not meit's him.

By Leos Carax. With Denis Lavant, Kateryna Yuspina, Nastya Golubeva Carax… Duration: 0h44. Released June 12, 2024