Subway (film)

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Subway
Directed by Luc Besson
Produced by Luc Besson
François Ruggieri
Written by Luc Besson
Marc Perrier
Starring Isabelle Adjani
Christopher Lambert
Michel Galabru
Jean-Hugues Anglade
Music by Éric Serra
Cinematography Carlo Varini
Distributed by Island Pictures US
Gaumont France
Release date(s) 1985
Running time 104 min
Country France
Language French

Subway is a 1985 French film directed by Luc Besson, starring Isabelle Adjani and Christopher Lambert and is part of the Cinema du look movement. The film was a reflection of the marginalised Génération Mitterrand of the 1980s.[1] Themes of the film include young people without family connections being monitored and policed by older people, the rejection of capitalist society [1] and 'high' culture being usurped by Pop Culture.[2]

Contents

Synopsis

Having stolen some compromising documents, a man known as Fred (Lambert) takes refuge in the fascinating underground world of the Paris Métro. While the henchmen of the gangster owner of the documents chase him, Fred develops a relationship with the gangster's young trophy wife Héléna (Adjani) who is getting increasingly bored with her gilded-caged life.

A number of fascinating characters pass by in the storyline, as Fred decides to form a band and perform in the subway. Among the band members are the Drummer (played by Jean Reno) and the Bass Player (Éric Serra), who have since accompanied Besson in the making of most of his movies.

At a performance with the newly formed band (where Fred has paid off the actual performers at an announced concert with money from a robbery and put his band in their place) he is shot by the henchmen of Héléna's husband before she can reach him to warn him of the approaching danger. The film ends with her kneeling beside him, Fred lying on his back looking content and singing along to the band playing in the background. The ending is left open as to what actually happens in the growing love relation between Fred and Helena — and to whether he lives or dies.

Cast

Reception

Subway was the third most popular French film in France in 1986, after Trois Hommes et un Couffin and Les Specialistes. It attracted 2,920,588 cinemagoers.[3] Christopher Lambert won a Cesar Award for best actor.[3]

The film holds an 86% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on seven reviews[4]. Janet Maslin of The New York Times praised the film's "highly energetic visual style" and "the sheer fun of staging domestic scenes, musical interludes and roller-skate chases in the underground" but added that "[the] characters and situations [are] so thin that they might as well be afterthoughts."[5]

Film references

Fred's demise is based on the ending of Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless [2]

Notes

  1. ^ a b Luc Besson - Susan Hayward
  2. ^ a b Contemporary French Cinema - Guy Austin
  3. ^ a b French Cinema - Powrie & Reader
  4. ^ Subway reviews, Rotten Tomatoes
  5. ^ Review, Janet Maslin, The New York Times, November 6, 1985

External links

v • d • e
Films directed by Luc Besson
1980s
The Last Battle (1983) • Subway (1985) • The Big Blue (1988)
1990s
Nikita (1990) • Léon (1994) • The Fifth Element (1997) • The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999)
2000s

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