Luc Besson : the alchemist. (2/2)

The characters in Besson’s signature film, « Le grand bleu », set records by diving deeper and deeper and exactly describe their creator’s ambition : film after film, as a scriptwriter, director, producer, to achieve new cinema lows that will translate into box office records.

Luc Besson, like Paolo Coelho, is a true alchemist and, in that respect, again a genuine ecologist : he routinely transmutes « navets » -i.e. turnips, i.e. French turkeys- into gold, when scientists struggle to produce ethanol from corn at acceptable economic and environmental costs.

Though « Les anges de l’apocalypse » is extraordinarily bad, the film could still have been worse and Besson, who is a manner of perfectionist, no doubt blames himself for not having been even less inspired.

« Les anges de l’apocalypse » script is mercifully short on sentimentality : we are spared all clichés about scarred heroes, no good guy dies a corny death, we do not have to stomach the requisite love story the addition of a female specialist in religions to the pair of « commissaires » seemed to sentence us to.

With Besson certainly aware of these limitations, we shall not feel safe from a third instalment in the projected trilogy : temptation is strong to build on the second film to manage an even worse one, bathed in sentimentality.

There are hints in « Les anges de l’apocalypse » that, if the film had actually told a story, it would have been of a misdirected quest. Luc Besson too is on a possibly misdirected but sincere quest.

Some scientists spend their professional life coming nearer and nearer to the « absolute zero » : minus 273,15 Celsius degrees, the temperature where everything stands still.

« Le grand bleu » heroes were on a similar quest, swimming always further into darkness and silence.

Luc Besson aims for the absolute zero in filmmaking : the movie with zero cinema content, which the filmmaker’s paradox will translate into infinite box office gross. Luc Besson is an utopian and a business genius.

Contemporary research requires huge funding. To fund his quest, Besson created Europacorp, a publicly traded company, which finances, produces, distributes, exports films.

Luc Besson’s paradox works better for the filmmaker than for his investors. In the course of 2007, Europacorp shares went down by more than 40%.

But, if you hold some, stick to them : the day Besson fulfils his quest of cinema absolute zero -and he will-, your shares will hit the roof and reach for the stars.