This first feature film became Boy Meets Girl and was released in 1984. The film tells the story of a who, the day before starting military service, meets a suicidal young woman who was also abandoned by her lover. The young man is called Alex, he wants to be a filmmaker, and he listens to David Bowie as he wanders around Paris by night... We understand that Alex is the onscreen embodiment of Leos Carax, played by the fantastic Denis Lavant, a year younger than him. He became his alter ego in almost all his films. A lot of aspects of Boy Meets Girl no doubt come from the real life and fantasies of the young Leos Carax, aged 23 at the time the film was shot, from his attitude which was both disenchanted and full of hope in himself, in life, art, other people, and love. The dialogue gives a clear – but never simplistic – glimpse of the view of the world of a very young artist and of his partners as certain lines were written by the actors themselves. Boy Meets Girl is a sincere work emanating from the turpitudes of young artists who were very representative of their era, the great disenchantment of the 1980s. Selffulfillment by political action was no longer the solution, the big community movements were falling apart, and we were seeing a renewal of individuals' internal oppositions and the barriers life put in their path.
"Here we are still alone... It is all so slow, so heavy, so sad... Soon I will be old and it will at last be over."
Boy Meets Girl