Nikita, (also called La Femme Nikita "), is a 1990 French action thriller film written and directed by Luc Besson. The film star Anne Parillaud as the title character, is a nihilistic teenage junkie who commits her life drugs and violence. One night, she robs a pharmacy and murders a policeman. She is sentenced to death. a shadowy government agency known as "the Centre", fakes her death, and she is given the choice of becoming an assassin, or being killed. After intense training, she becomes a talented killer. Her career as an assassin goes well until a mission in an embassy goes awry.
Luc Besson was born in 1959. he's a French film director, writer and producerHe has been involved with over 50 films, spanning 26 years, as writer, director, and/or producer. Besson was born in Paris and had planned on becoming a marine biologist. He spent much of his youth traveling with his parents who were both Club Med scuba diving instructors. The family returned to France when Besson was 10 . “I loved writing, I loved images, I was taking a lot of pictures. So I thought maybe movies would be good. At 18, Besson returned to his birthplace of Paris. There he worked as an assistant to directors. After this, he moved to the United States for three years, but returned to form his own production company which he called "Les Films du Loup". Then his career started and “Le grand bleu” has been a defining moment. The audience has immediately been seduced by the grandiose images and divine music of “Le grand bleu” that instantly becomes cult, to the point of speaking of a "big blue generation". The film has left its mark on a whole generation, and Luc Besson has become in this late 80s one of the most prominent directors of French cinema, even if the Critics still refuse to give him any support. Critics considered Besson was more about beautiful image than giving meaning to its history. However, the success was obvious and Gaumont agreed to finance Nikita without even having seen a script. Luc Besson says that the project Nikita was born one day when he listened to the song "Nikita" of Elton John on a plane with his walkman.
Nikita premiered in Paris at the Grand Rex on 21 February 1990. On its first week in Paris. It was released in the United States in 1991. By the end of the year, the film was the third highest grossing French film production in the United States. In France, the popular press reception to the film was mixed. Le Figaro and Le Journal du Dimanche gave the film positive reviews, while others like L'Humanité, Le Monde dismissed it and said that the film was like a commercial advertisement visually and was psychologically had the depth of a comic strip. Besson answered "Critics should be looking towards the future, but in France, all they want to talk about is the past."
Some critics were unfair. Besson finds with Nikita a darker atmosphere that he had already discussed with Subway.The movie gives an original point of view: murder is not perceived in the same way by the society according to who executed it. Thus, Nikita, under the influence of drugs, kills police officers and finds himself sentenced to life for this crime. Subsequently, it is proposed to continue to kill, but this time by rendering service to the French state. Where is the border between murder from a criminal background and cold execution covered by the state?
Produced, arranged, and composed by Eric Serra, the soundtrack to director Luc Besson's smash movie La Femme Nikita was the third collaboration between the pair and is a reazlly big part of the success. The soundtrack sublimates the images and is an integral part of the film (like the Morricone soundtracks at the time of his collaboration with Sergio Leone).
Nikita is played by Anne Parillaud, fragile actress who gave here the best of herself. She embodies this young woman with his guts, and was awarded by the prize for the best actress. One month before the shooting, Besson "isolates" the actress in a huge disused factory located in an industrial zone. Sleeping on a camp bed and subjected to a drastic diet (she loses ten kilos) no read, no music, no television no call, no shower. “I did not know my character. For a year and a half, I trained without reading the script, without knowing the character of Nikita, because Luc Besson did not want to.” Said Anne parillaud. During the famous shooting scene in the kitchens of the restaurant Le Train Bleu, Gare de Lyon, she had her back burned by explosives ... But she refused any break and continued to play.
Critics cite Besson as being a pivotal figure in the French Cinéma of a “movement which favor style over substance, spectacle over narrative. Subway, The “Grand bleu” and Nikita are all considered to be of this stylistic school. Others consider that French cinema can’t be only defined by Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut . Luc Besson, we can love it or not, has been a big influence in the industry to change the look of movies by making them better, more “pleasurable to watch.”
To know more about the subject:
Everett, Todd (12 January 1997). "Review: 'La Femme Nikita'". Variety. Retrieved 7 January 2017.
Movie Review: 'Nikita': A Thriller With a Feminine Twist". The Los Angeles Times. 15 March 1991. Retrieved 2011-01-11.
The Balcony Archive: La Femme Nikita" (Flash video). Ebert & Roeper. Retrieved 2007-12-07
Griffin, John (8 June 1990). "Despite Big Box Office, Critics Stay Cool to Besson's Films". The Gazette.
Dutka, Elaine (27 March 1991). "The 'Fairy Tale' Luck of Director Luc Besson : Movies: His latest film, 'La Femme Nikita,' the story of a crazed addict transformed into a ruthless undercover agent, is a surprise hit". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 7 January 2017.
Luc Besson: The most Hollywood of French filmmakers", International Herald Tribune, 20 May 2007
purepeople.com/article/fini-anne-parillaud-revient-sur-le-tournage-de-nikita-entre-sequestration-et-accident 25 February, 2010
