FRENCH FILM SERIES AT UCLA : EXPLORING PARISIAN FRINGE SOCIETY

Historians are fond of saying that only two national cinemas--that of the United States and France--have the distinction of an unbroken legacy of quality films. It’s therefore not surprising to see a selection of recent films from new French directors paralleling the strengths and weaknesses of their current American cousins. These productions share high marks for technique; it’s their stories that consistently fail to involve us.

Apart from these generalities, the subjects of a five-film series, presented this weekend by UCLA and Unifrance at Melnitz Auditorium, UCLA, are unified through their exploration of Parisian fringe society. “Miss Mona” invades the city’s gay environs through the eyes of a reluctantly involved illegal North Africa guest worker; “Bad Blood” harks back to the era of American film noir with a story of doomed lovers; “Taxi Boy” is a buddy yarn of dashed hopes; and “Black and White” (previously seen at the AFI Festival) is a disturbing tale of a sadomasochistic relationship. “Rue du Depart” was unavailable for screening.

The series opener, “Bad Blood” (Melnitz, Friday, 8 p.m.), is film maker Leos Carax’s follow-up to his prize-winning debut feature “Boy Meets Girl.” However, neither access to major actors nor a large budget has resulted in significant artistic strides for Carax. His new film treads familiar water, but where he had been able to pull off inspired low-budget flashes before, he now dissolves into greater self-conceits.

The story centers on Alex (Denis Lavant), the son of a recently murdered gangster, who’s enticed into a robbery by his father’s former cronies. Carax, employing sub-Chandleresque voice-over and an ominous nocturnal milieu, seems only peripherally interested in the thriller aspects of his script. Instead, he prefers to focus on the impossible love that Alex feels toward the girlfriend (Juliette Binoche) of the caper ringleader (Michel Piccoli). Rather than mesh the two elements, he creates a tension that works against both aspects of his story.

Carax culls liberally from the history of the movies, creating a patchwork quilt of ideas and interests that lack a sustaining core. While Piccoli is constantly fascinating to watch, his younger, more dramatically crucial, performers are disturbingly colorless. Lavant, in particular, projects the determination and mien of an obstinate Pekinese. The overall effect can only be described as daunting.

“Taxi Boy” (Melnitz, Saturday, 7:30 p.m.), from first-time director Alain Page, is an even more curious offering. Here, there is something akin to an odd coupling with veteran actors Claude Brausseur and Richard Berry taking on the roles of the slob and the fussbudget, respectively.

Brausseur, a drifter returned after 15 years from parts unknown, has come to see his grown daughter. However, he immediately lands in trouble by running up a gambling debt. Beaten by thugs, it falls to Berry, a cab driver and tango dancer (a double taxi reference and one-fare performance), to pull him out of the gutter.

The thrust of the story, which Page doles out in miserly fashion, finds the two men and the long-unseen daughter pooling stakes in a gamble for a new life in Bora-Bora. While every turn is telegraphed in anticipation of imminent disaster, the director can be credited with at least not fulfilling our worst expectation. Otherwise, the situation is far too enigmatic and oblique.

(“Black and White,” reviewed during its American Film Institute Film Festival showings last month, follows “Taxi Boy on Saturday at 9 p.m.)

“Miss Mona” (Melnitz, Sunday, 7:30 p.m.)--the film and the role--shares with the other offerings the idea that hope, albeit impossible, is the first step in breaking down man-made barriers. The title character, played by the dependable Jean Carmet, is a transvestite, wronged years ago by a lover who took their cash and went to Switzerland to have a sex-change operation they had mutually planned.

A desperate need for cash and vindication has Mona befriending Samir (Ben Smail), a down-on-his-luck illegal who’s migrated from North Africa. One recognizes his/her grasp of Samir’s street potential but soon the mercenary aspects of the relationship give way to more balanced emotions.

Director Mehdi Charef demonstrates an acute knowledge of the milieu; still, the situation remains more oppressive than instructive. In all, this group of films suggests that today’s young French film makers are desperately mired in the spirit of Sartre’s “No Exit.”

(“Rue du Depart,” which was unavailable for preview, will screen after “Miss Mona” on Sunday at 9 p.m.)