Not your typical French filmmaker

Director Olivier Assayas is the first to admit that his movies don’t play by the rules of conventional cinema. But the French filmmaker, whose latest project, “Boarding Gate,” opens in limited release in Los Angeles Friday, says that in order to make sense of life in today’s world, it’s sometimes necessary to dispense with tradition.

“What I am trying to do is just define the new tools to make modern movies that deal with modern situations,” Assayas said.

“Boarding Gate” completes a trilogy that has turned the notion of what makes a film “French” on its head, with Assayas trading stereotypical locales like garden parties and romantic cafes for a dizzying string of interconnected international locales. His globe-hopping, technology-laden world speaks directly to the disorientation that seems so endemic to modern life.

The earlier films in Assayas’ trilogy -- “demonlover” (2002) and “Clean” (2004) -- were met with a critical reception that veered from the bewildered to the outright dismissive, but that kind of reaction doesn’t seem to bother Assayas, himself a former movie critic.

“I think it’s because ostensibly the films are breaking the rules of what French independent films should be,” said the Paris-based director, speaking by phone from New York. “But that’s what’s interesting. It’s the kind of chances you have to take, that’s exactly what’s exciting about cinema. You have art-house audiences who are angry because they think I’m going in the direction of mainstream filmmaking by using genre elements, like I’m going in the direction off making some kind of Hollywood movie. Which is so completely ridiculous.”

It is difficult to imagine a major studio releasing “Boarding Gate.” The story centers on a shady American businessman (Michael Madsen) living in Europe and the sometime mistress (Asia Argento) who goes on the run to Hong Kong. There’s brief appearance by Kim Gordon of the band Sonic Youth (barking orders to lackeys in Cantonese, no less), as well as by Asian stars Kelly Lin and Carl Ng and by French starlet Joana Preiss.

The film, which includes no small amount of international intrigue and just a touch of kinky sex, has its origins in a newspaper article Assayas read regarding a wealthy French executive who was murdered during an S&M; session.

“When I read this story in the press, it was like straight out of ‘demonlover,’ like reality had been stealing my characters,” Assayas said. “So in a way it just gave me the impulse to imagine a film that would deal with what happens when flesh-and-blood characters are confronted with the modern circulation of money, commodities, persons, this big flow between the East and the West.”

Assayas, 53, son of a French screenwriter, began his career as a critic for the prestigious French film journal Cahiers du Cinema. After moving behind the camera in the late ‘80s, he began to explore the hopes and miseries of French youth with films including “Cold Water” (1994). His international breakthrough came two years later with “Irma Vep,” and it was on the set of that film that he fell in love with his star, Hong Kong icon Maggie Cheung. The two were married only briefly -- by the time Cheung won best actress honors at the Cannes Film Festival for her starring role in “Clean,” they had divorced.

Cannes has become something of a second home for Assayas -- and for his “Boarding Gate” star Argento, who last year starred in three films in the festival’s lineup. Her electrifying screen presence, by turns sexy and super-charged, has made her a favorite of a certain strain of rebel filmmaker and moviegoer, and Assayas said he tailored the role of Sandra in his new thriller just for her. “To me, Asia is Asia,” he said.

Finding the right foil for the actress, he said, was one of the most complicated aspects of making the film. He turned to Madsen, still best known for his turn as the ear-slicing career criminal Mr. Blonde in “Reservoir Dogs,” for a tough guy who could be dangerous and vulnerable.

“You need to have that kind of person in front of Asia,” observed Assayas. “She is so instinctive, she is very tough and very demanding, so you need to have in front of her someone who has the same strength, the same animality, and who can be a match for her. Otherwise, you put some regular mainstream actor in there, she just swallows him and spits him out. You need someone who has the potential to intimidate her.”

“The fact is: I don’t really get an opportunity to play a role like this very often,” added Madsen, speaking by phone from his home in Los Angeles. “Nobody wants to put me in a suit and a tie and have me sit in an office, let alone give me love scenes. People are a lot more comfortable when I have a cigarette in my mouth and a gun in my hand.”

The first scene between Madsen and Argento in the film is full of sexual tension and a surprising tenderness, and remarkably was shot only moments after the two actors met.

“I got lucky with Asia, that’s for sure,” Madsen added with a knowing laugh. “When I first walked on the set she was drinking a can of beer. She had a straw in it, and a napkin wrapped around the can and she was wearing a robe. It was very lady-like. In the first five seconds I saw her I thought, ‘OK, we’re going to get along very well.’ And we did.”