Subway

Cinéma du look in all its glory. A subterranean community of refugees seeks safety in maze-like subway tunnels, which become a temporary home for Fred, who has stolen important documents incriminating the wrong person. Hunted by gangsters and police, Fred tries to settle down beneath Paris streets, falls in love with the wife of the man who put a price on his head and jams with a garage band. Besson infuses Subway with allusions to films by himself, Jean-Luc Godard and Batman comics. It may be pop culture clutter, but it sparkles with all requisite colours.

13th New Horizons IFF Catalogue

Luc Besson (b. 1959) – French director, screenwriter, and producer. He planned to become a marine biologist, but a diving accident made this impossible, which has proved fortunate for the art of filmmaking. Raised on comics and television since he was a child, Besson turned his attention to photography and, later, cinema, sketching plots of his future hits in a notebook. After finishing school, he undertook a short internship in Hollywood, where he began working in the film industry on both short and feature films, later becoming an assistant director at the Gaumont Film Company, where he worked with Lewis Gilbert, Clive Donner, Claude Faraldo, and Patrick Grandperret, among others. He founded his own production company in 1981, where he did advertising work. His debut in the science fiction genre, The Last Battle (1983), brought him several international awards. His style follows closely that of Hollywood, making him stand out among other French filmmakers. From the mid-1980s to the early 1990s, Besson has been a standout member of an informal artistic movement called cinéma du look or French Neo-Baroque.

13th New Horizons IFF Catalogue