La Femme Nikita (1991)

Touches You

An Exercise In Nonsense

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

When the film opens, Nikita is a frail young woman who's literally dragged to a robbery, everyone is excited, but she seems absent, hanging on the miserable hope to get her fix. When everything goes wrong (and that's an understatement) she is sitting on the ground, passively watching cops and punks kill and being killed. At that point, she seems like a victim but then she cold-bloodily shoots a cop who actually cared for her, then even for us, she's beyond any kind of redemption. Things go rather quickly: she's arrested, put on trial and sentenced for perpetuity.But there's something in Anne Parillaud's performance (that won the French Oscar for Best Actress, the only award the film received) that turns Nikita into a genuinely enigmatic personality, we don't like her, there's not much question that she's a bad woman, but she's also a weird, infantile, grotesque, rude and excessively unpredictable person. The film doesn't suggest that she's victim of herself, but simply that there's a sort of vacuum in her life, her education or her mind that let criminal impulses fill it, she's bad but in an accidental sort of way. The film then ventures in "realistic fantasy" when she's put to sleep by injection and wakes up in a secret government organization specialized in recruiting new profiles for assignments to kill. What did they see in Nikita, we never know but the man in charge of her 'reeducation' is Bob, played by the great Tcheky Karyo and he's convinced that the girl has potential.Luc Besson knows his craft, he expected that the whole first act would consist on showing the evolution of Nikita from that sorry-excuse-for-a-woman to a professional female killer, meaning in subtext, that she'll have to become a woman as well, it's a rebirth, a metamorphosis she'll owe to her new job, and what an irony that killing people will be the counterpart to being alive. This paradox will shape the second personality of Nikita, who'll never stop to be a tortured woman but in a different way, she's just starting to enjoy life but the catch of her redemption consists on cold-blooded murders. But Besson knows our disbelief won't be suspended for long if the change isn't believable, we could believe his Leon was such a pro because we didn't see his back-story or his training, for Nikita, the film will have to become a character-study, and I guess this is why Besson started with an action sequence and some unexpected outburst during the training part.Nikita's unpredictability is the key to her appeal as an original character, until we know it's time to get over it, but it allows Besson to find the right balance between action and drama, and some moments like the interactions with Jeanne Moreau, teaching her how to smile, how to be a woman, is one of these emotional reliefs the story asks for. And it turns out that, because her life is still at stakes, because she's supposed to be dead and she's easily disposable, she becomes a real woman, feminine, pretty and gentle. And then, something interesting happens, there's a transfer from Nikita to the script in the unpredictability department, Nikita remains the same woman, vulnerable and melancholic and the excitement, the thrills come from Besson's hard-edged script. Yes, he is an expert of cinema "du look" as they say in France, and yes, he was one of these new talents with vision but he doesn't get enough credit for his screen writing. Her relationship with Pygmalion Bob is one of the aspects that elevate the film.I will not reveal all the film but there's just one scene that works on a perfect tertiary tempo, and it's just fascinating. Nikita is invited to a restaurant with Bob to celebrate her 'graduation', her gift is wrapped in a box, she opens it and her smile vanishes: it's a gun. She must kill someone. First surprise. She has three minutes to do it after Bob leaves, no time to think. Second surprise. She's suppose to get off from a little window located in men's toilets, when she gets there, it's walled. Third surprise. Each time, we see nothing coming, we're literally put in her high-heel shoes and try to figure out how she'll get from that situation. The action sequences that go after are spectacular but traditional, yet it works because Besson makes his action sequences as a dressing, not as a meal, the film is a terrific thriller because of the set-ups rather than the outcomes, the anticipation rather than the action especially since Nikita isn't exactly the Leon-professional type, the film almost works on a Hitchcockian level.And it could have worked alone with Nikita, Bob and the missions, but Besson adds a third dimension, a romance. Nikita falls in love with a gentle and smiling cashier played by Jean-Hugues Anglade, he's obviously not expecting such a beauty to approach him, but she does. Maybe because she's like him, she feels like an outcast, and she could tell he would love her, the organization reeducated her, but there was still a little void in her heart, and I just love how the film never tries to create artificial obstacles in their love, it's pure, passionate love, and it will overlap with the killing missions in the most creative and again, unexpected ways. That's exactly what I love about the film, it provides unexpected moments of thrills and emotions without being too original, it's a good thriller, romance and character-study.And trust Besson to always find a way to surprise you, every mission is memorable in a climactic or anti-climactic way, and just when it gets too routinely, he introduces one of this great supporting characters, Victor the Cleaner, played by Jean Reno, perhaps foreshadowing his performance as Léon. Victor is here for ten minutes but he makes the show but that's another story.

Reading up about the Cinéma du look movement,I found out that before his collaborations with Liam Neeson, Luc Besson was one of the leaders of the movement.With having heard about the impact that the film had for years,I decided that it was time to meet the original Nikita.The plot:Going with some pals to rob a pharmacy, Nikita gets caught up in a shoot out with the local police. Horrified to see her friends get killed,Nikita kills a cop at point-blank range. Arrested,Nikita ends up getting sentenced to life in jail. Taken by Nikita's anger,the police decide to fake her death.Revealing Nikita's death certificate,the police reveal to Nikita that they have decided to give her a second chance in life,as a secret agent government assassin.View on the film:Sliding along on Eric Serra's ice cool score,writer/director Luc Besson & cinematographer Thierry Arbogast treat the pulpy tale of Nikita to lavish Cinéma du look glamour.Covering the film in neon yellows,lush greens and burning blood reds,Besson and Arbogast turn Nikita into a living comic-book,where the vibrant colours burst on the screen,and glamorous tracking shots place Nikita in comic-book style frames.Keeping a distance from going too in-depth into Nikita's background,the screenplay by Besson cuts Nikita as a razor sharp femme fatal,whose thrust for a drug hit Besson transforms into an assassination hit. Inspired by Film Noir,Besson takes a clinical approach to Nikita's training into being an assassin,that is trapped in a world where doubt/remorse are locked away for a successful "hit", which causes Nikita to question her role as a soulless femme fatale.Gliding in with a real swagger,Jean Reno gives a wonderfully animated performance as Victor "The Cleaner" Nettoyeur,whilst Jeanne Moreau gives the title a graceful touch as Nikita trainer Amanda.Entering the film kicking & screaming, Anne Parillaud gives a powerful performance as Nikita,thanks to Parillaud snarling with a Punk Rock anger over where she has ended up,which Parillaud neatly balances with a calculating side,as Nikita sets her sights on a new hit.

Upon cinematic release, being fascinated with Bridget Fonda, I watched 'Point of No Return', which I enjoyed but had no idea it was based on Besson's film. Badham's work was okay in my books, but nothing spectacular. Over the years I had loved those films of his I had seen ('Leon: The Professional', 'The Fifth Element', 'The Family' and 'Lucy'), and decided I wanted to see his earlier classic. I like the fact that Besson always has some hand in the writing, and the exquisite and graceful small part he wrote for acting legend Jeanne Moreau, virtually a microcosm of everything splendid she had ever brought to the screen. Besson has a very good feel for the genres his films represent--he plays to his strengths, and is not afraid to stick to his guns (for example, I'm glad he chose the ending that he did). The two significant extras on my DVD, remarking on the making of the film, and the sound selections by scorer Eric Serra, were both informative and entertaining, and added significant value. I highly recommend the experience to those who only think of 'The Fifth Element' when they think of Luc's work--you're in for a real treat...

When it comes to spy cinema, Americans generally know it through franchises like James Bond, Mission: Impossible, the Bourne series, and... Spy Kids. Those films generally paint two portraits of the spy life. Either glamorous and exotic, or intense and brutal. Nikita is an interesting film in the genre. While it certainly leans more towards the latter, it's one of the very films in the genre that both shows a realistic depiction of spy life but at the same time, stylizes it. But does Nikita work as a film? Let's find out.The plot follows a teenage junkie by the name of Nikita, who gets arrested one night after partaking in a drug store robbery that goes horribly wrong where she murders a policeman in cold-blood, making her guilty of serving a life sentence. However, the French government fakes a suicide for her to become a spy/assassin.What's interesting about Nikita is its look into the life of a spy. This isn't James Bond, there's no gadgets, no witty one-liners, and no larger-than-life villains. What we have INSTEAD, is a look into a woman being turned by the French government from a teenage junkie to a dangerous killing machine. Nikita is a woman who starts out with no meaning in life as she hangs around with junkies and is addicted to drugs herself but after she's trained to be a spy, she becomes a lethal killing machine but in the meantime, becomes refined, mentally stable, and even attractive. What's interesting about this is the MORALITY. On one hand, she MURDERED a policeman, so she deserves punishment but at the same time, once she gets out of spy school, she cares and appreciates not just for her life, but also for society and towards the END, she ditches her mission and runs away to leave the life of a spy. The film's message can be pretty much be chalked up to "everybody deserves a second chance" and it's delivered beautifully because it's not RAMMED down your throat with lines like "Maybe Nikita, deserves another chance. Maybe, she never deserved this in the first place." which would have dumbed down the entire movie.Outside of the morality behind the film, Nikita is also very stylish. Director Luc Besson directs this film with a strange mix of realism and style but somehow, it works! This movie has its fair share of brutal realism with scenes like "the Cleaner" using acid to melt down the bodies of those he killed or Nikita trying to break out by threatening her supervisor, Bob, at gunpoint but there's also scenes of style such as the speech her instructor, Amande tells about femininity and the means of using it or the scenes of Nikita training comically in spy school. The reason this works is because neither styles go too far, so they end up complimenting each other and creating its own style rather than making for something inconsistent and jarring. The cinematography by Thierry Arbogast is also quite good at creating this gritty, stylized look.But with all that good said, this is not a perfect movie. One of its biggest flaws is the confused timeframe presented in the story. The movie spans over years of Nikita training to become a spy but the way it's edited makes it feel like only a few weeks/months have gone by so when one of the heads of the organization says "Nikita has been training here for six years.", you'll just be left sitting there like "Wait, it's been six years?"Another problem is the character of Marco. He's just really bland and uninteresting throughout. He's supposed to be the man who wins Nikita's heart and make her appreciate life more but the thing is, while he seems like a really nice guy, his interactions with Nikita aren't very interesting. He questions her here and there about things like why she never has friends or family over at her place or why she spends so much time in the bathroom ignoring him but it never amounts to anything more than that. I would've liked to see him actually get MAD at her at one point and have an argument play out, I think that would've been a little more interesting.The last of the major problems is the score by Eric Serra. It just sounds incredibly bland and sterile throughout. There's some scenes in the film where I literally felt like ripping my HAIR out because of how mind-inducingly dull it is. Although, I did like the music when "the Cleaner" was taking care of business.However, those problems aren't NEARLY strong enough to ruin the film because of the excellent cast. Anne Parillaud gives a truly spectacular performance as Nikita. Her change from teenage junkie to refined assassin is very believable and all her conflicting emotions about being a spy feel very real and believable. Tcheky Karyo plays Bob fascinatingly with a polite persona but with an underlying intensity that makes you really think and question his feelings towards Nikita effectively. While I thought his character was a little bland, Jean- Hugues Anglade does the best he can as Marco and remains likable the entire film. Lastly, while "the Cleaner" doesn't get a whole lot of screen time, Reno stands out as a cool and bada$$ character in the film.Overall, while it has some issues regarding the timeframe, the character of Marco, and the score. Nikita is still an interesting character study with stylish direction and an excellent cast. 8/10