Pola X

Pola X is a 1999 drama film directed by Leos Carax and starring Guillaume Depardieu, Yekaterina Golubeva and Catherine Deneuve. The film is loosely based on the Herman Melville novel Pierre: or, The Ambiguities. It revolves around a young novelist who is confronted by a woman who claims to be his lost sister, and the two begin a romantic relationship. The film title is an acronym of the French title of the novel, Pierre ou les ambiguïtés, plus the Roman numeral "X" indicating the tenth draft version of the script that was used to make the film. The film was entered into the 1999 Cannes Film Festival. Pola X has been associated by some with the New French Extremity. Plot Pierre lives a carefree life with his widowed mother in a Normandy chateau, enjoying rising fame as a pseudonymous author, writing his second novel, and speeding on his motorbike to sleep with his fiancée and childhood friend Lucie in her parents' chateau. In a bar he sees his cousin (and also childhood friend) Thibault, a stockbroker, who says he is welcome to stay at Thibault's apartment in Paris, but wonders why Pierre is being followed by a young vagrant woman. When Pierre turns to look, the woman runs away. Driving through the forest, Pierre is disturbed to see the vagrant woman, who resembles a ghostly figure from his dreams. She tells him in a strong foreign accent that she is his half-sister Isabelle and recounts her unhappy life. She and her two companions (a Romanian woman, Razerka, and a small girl) are apparently refugees from conflict in Eastern Europe.