Pola X (1999) review

Incest and madness don't go well together, I gather: young novelist Pierre, who has a really bizarre relationship with his mother (father has been successfully eliminated, to continue the Oedipal undertones), runs off to exile with a woman who claims to be his half-sister and descends into lunacy. Marred by a monotonous screenplay and extreme pretentiousness, it does not, even in its best moments, come close to Carax's 1991 film Lovers of the Bridge or even Mauvais Sang (could Lavant and Binoche have been that vital?). Guillaume Depardieu isn't a good choice for the lead - his performance is wooden and arid (to make use of my built-in Thesaurus) - although it is nice to see there are characters out there in make-believe movie land that enjoy sex for once.