As has already been said, "The Moon in the Gutter" compared unfavorably with Beineix's previous light and playful "Diva." It also cost too much, which at the time ('80s) was being widely reported as some kind of aesthetic crime. But "Moon" seems to be nothing more powerful as a waking dream/nightmare. With its constant references to being in a dream, the beautiful and artificial sets and lighting, and the way people, cars, and the camera move through and around each other, the film, with a relatively low level of dialogue, manifests an urgent physicality.The camera love the leads, particularly Depardieu and Kinski. Depardieu is shot in repose often, a block of smoldering anger while Kinski seems almost like a light flare of red chiffon he can't grasp. Some reviewers seem to bemoan the lack of a clear mystery or resolution, but the very text of the film seems to stem from the inside of Gerard's (Depardieu) inner thought processes - the sweat, the lights, the suspicion. He flares in anger almost without provocation and can't get the vision of his dead sister out of his head or his dreams - or that razor out of his hand.The billboard, "Try Another World," is a cruel tease, a promise he can ultimately not follow. At the end, he is not with the girl who may save him but we wouldn't believe it if she did. Some viewers may want a clearer denouncement of what comes of Loretta, but the stance, the razor in his hand, the billboard impotent on the other side of the glass and the conflicted schizophrenic cadence of the music says everything you need to know.Beineix's use of symbol to express mood and plot subtext was better submerged in "Betty Blue," a big hit.The moon is not in the sky, it is in the gutter, and there it is strangely beautiful, reflecting another world that is unobtainable, all surface, threatening and like a model on a hill.

The second feature from the director of 'Diva' was met with enough ridicule to suggest a settling of old scores, but unfortunately the film deserved every insult it inspired. No one can say Jean-Jacques Beineix wasn't asking for trouble, and the end result of his efforts to create a heavily stylized, romantic mood piece is an unforgivably empty and pretentious melodrama so laughably bad it might almost be a parody of modern European art-schlock cinema. The ubiquitous Gerard Depardieu plays a burly stevedore who wanders the docks of a nameless city, brooding over the unknown assailant who killed his sister; soon he begins brooding over sultry Nastassia Kinski instead, and they elope. Or do they? Every tantalizing hint of a plot disappears (usually within a scene or two) behind a welter of self-indulgent gestures, none of which could possibly make any sense to anyone except the writer-director. At best the film might be dismissed as a failed experiment; more accurately, it's a near masterpiece of unintended awfulness.

The director & co-screenplay writer Jean Jacques Beineix must of thought he was the French personification of the director of Heaven's Gate, which we know or should know was an overlong indulgent movie.La Lune Dans Le Caniveau (The Moon is in the Gutter) is of the same cloth,pretty at times to look at but mostly grim needless artless & uninteresting. A better translated title would be The Moon is in the Sewer. it is that dreary & boring.Now this does have a very well known cast of 1983 & still are known today. Gerard Depardieu was 35 when this was made & he sure was very handsome & sexy. Victoria Abril was very young,sexy and very beautiful.The same goes for Nastassia Kinski.These three fine talents do NOT rise above the base script.This is a very long 138 minute film, I have heard that the director (like Cimino) had a much longer movie. The film may have been a good movie at about 80 minutes.Ratings: *1/2 (out of 4) 42 points(out of 100)IMDB 3 (out of 10)

It's a pity we were unable to watch the complete version of the movie, that lasts nearly 5 hours. It might give us a complete story that is too short here. Maybe one day Beineix will release it on dvd...