WHEN CARS STOP, PAIR HEATS UP IN `FRIDAY NIGHT'.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

LEAVE IT to the French to make a traffic jam sexy.

More specifically, leave it to Claire Denis, a director whose long history of sensuously tactile depictions of desire (``Chocolat'' - not the candy-coated fairy tale, but the Africa-set coming-of-age story - ``Beau Travail,'' ``Trouble Every Day'') reaches a kind of pure expression in her latest export, ``Friday Night.''

Once again relying on the textured intimacy of brilliant cinematographer Agnes Godard's images, Denis imbues the simple details of a one-night stand with powerful eroticism and humane understanding. And in the process, she also performs the impossible trick of actually making one long to be stuck in Paris during a transit strike on a cold winter's night.

Though we glimpse hundreds of frustrated motorists and pedestrians - and feel we learn something about most of them from their expressions and short bits of business throughout this dialogue-light exercise, which was adapted by Denis and Emmanuele Bernheim (``Under the Sand'') from Bernheim's novel - ``Friday Night'' is essentially a two-hander.

Comedian Valerie Lemercier plays the rather dour Laure, a woman in her 30s who, having just packed up her apartment, is going to move in with her boyfriend the next day.

She also has dinner plans for the evening with a couple of friends who just had a baby. As she drives to their place, quietly conflicted about the big life change she's making, Laure seems pleased to get stuck in gridlock in her little crate of a car - which is, after all, the last space she can claim as entirely her own, even if she's put a ``for sale'' sign in its side window.

Zen/zoning in and out of attention to the Limbo-like street scene, Laure fantasizes and dries her tidal wave of brunet curls in front of the car's heater, while an annoyingly chirpy radio announcer exhorts drivers to be patient, courteous and to pick up stranded pedestrians. After a few false tries, Laure does the latter when a confident, easygoing fellow, Jean (Vincent Lindon), asks to take a load off in her passenger seat.

One thing leads to another, and Laure and Jean end up in a small, underheated hotel room (the place offers ``special strike rates''). Here the Denis-Godard feel-the-images style achieves a real apotheosis as the camera moves in close for loving visual caresses of loosened clothing and exposed skin. Tentativeness, need, hunger, excitement, even the temperature become palpable. And since this is a French affair, there is still dinner to consider.

Like most Denis, ``Friday Night'' can get too arty for its own good. The film's pacing, which often goes for the illusion of real time, can accurately be compared to an idling automobile's in neutral gear. And although it's always mesmerizing to look at, cinematic flourishes involving double exposures, iris shots and varied film speeds distract from the lyrical realism Godard so carefully creates.

Overall though, ``Friday Night'' will leave you wistfully wondering why, the next time you're immobilized on the 405 during rush hour, something like this can't happen here.

Bob Strauss, [phone]

bob.strauss(at)dailynews.com

FRIDAY NIGHT - Three stars

(Not rated: sex, nudity, language, violence)

Starring: Valerie Lemercier, Vincent Lindon.

Director: Claire Denis.

Running time: 1 hr. 30 min.

Playing: Landmark Cecchi Gori Fine Arts, Beverly Hills.

In a nutshell: During a horrendous Paris traffic jam, a woman driver meets an attractive pedestrian. Being French, they check into a hotel for some great sex. A film of few words and ample sensuality.