French film director (and philosophy professor) Eugene Green hails from New York, but you’d never guess it from the gentle Bressonian drifts of his style and the curious ways his actors address the camera. In his three features to date he’s moved from a Flaubert story (Every Night, 2001) to a medieval fairy tale (The Living World, 2003) to this tale (2004) set around the title bridge in Paris, interweaving the stories of a drifting, suicidal literature student (Adrian Michaux) and a classically trained singer (Natasha Regnier). The mannerist mood verges on deadpan parody, yet this is far from cynical or unfelt, and the music is potent. With Denis Podalydes and Olivier Gourmet. In French with subtitles. 126 min. (JR)