Pola X

Pierre lives a carefree life with his widowed mother in a chateau in Normandy, writing his second novel and roaring off on his father's old motor bike to sleep with his fiancée Lucie in her parents' chateau. In a bar he sees his stockbroker cousin Thibault, who says he can always stay in his apartment in Paris, but wonders why he is being followed by a young vagrant woman. When Pierre turns to look, the woman runs away.

One night his mother tells him she has arranged a date for the marriage and he must tell Lucie. Driving through the forest, he is disturbed to see the vagrant woman, who is like a figure in his dreams. She runs away, but he catches up with her. She tells him in a strong East European accent that she is his half-sister Isabelle and recounts her unhappy life.

Abandoning home, mother and fiancée, Pierre takes Isabelle to Paris and goes to the flat of Thibault, who throws him out. Reduced to a cheap hotel, he gets to work on his novel. After various mishaps, he and Isabelle sink to living in a squat, where they become lovers. To promote his novel, he unwisely appears on television, where the studio audience boo him. Abandoning home and family, Lucie then comes looking for him and joins them in the squat, after Pierre lies to her that Isabelle is no more than a sister and lies to Isabelle that Lucie is just a cousin.

On getting a rejection note for his book, he goes berserk. Finding two pistols hidden in the squat, he heads off to kill the publisher. Seeing Thibault in the street, he shoots him dead. Isabelle and Lucie have followed him and see him arrested. In despair at losing him, Isabelle throws herself in front of a car.

The soundtrack was produced by Scott Walker and features some instrumental tracks by him, as well as contributions by Sonic Youth and Bill Callahan, who also has a cameo appearance in the film.

An alternate longer TV version entitled "Pierre ou les ambiguïtés", edited in three episodes with an additional 40 minutes of footage, was shown for the first time on 24 September 2001 on Arte German-French TV channel.[4] The episodes were titled A la lumière, A l'ombre des lumières and Dans le sang.

Carax edited the TV version along the lines of serials from his childhood, in particular Vidocq.[5] The new scenes in the alternative version were produced during the original shoot with extra money raised by producer Bruno Pesery to allow them to exceed their contractually agreed 140 minute running time.[6] The new sequences explore the dreams of Peter and his relationship with his mother, sister and fiancée. In an interview with Jacques Morice, Carax stated that, "it is not an 'extended version' or a 'final version' of the film Pola X, but a different proposition for television."[6][7]

• List of mainstream movies with unsimulated sex

• Pola X at IMDb
• Pola X at Rotten Tomatoes
• Pola X at Metacritic