Director: Christophe Honore Year: 2007 Rating: 7.0 Country:
France
This is a rather nifty throwback to the musicals of Jacque Demy with the
characters walking through the streets of Paris constantly breaking into
song about the city and about love. Though much more Umbrellas of Cherbourg
than The Girls of Rochefort with its progression from romanticism to deep
melancholy, it tackles the sharp cutting angles of love as only the French
can in film. Times though have changed since the early 1960's and this time
love begins with a ménage a trois and ends in a passionate gay embrace.
Broken into three chapters the film goes into some unexpected places of the
heart. The songs are those of Alex Beaupain and sung by the actors – lilting
and charming with very simple arrangements.
Ismael is in a threesome with his girlfriend Julie and his co-worker Alice
and the three of them share nights out and a small bed together. The three
way relationship is clearly a temporary one of experimentation and curiosity
and edges of jealousy work there way around them. But when one of them shockingly
dies of a heart attack, the film leaves its expected path and romantic moorings
into a period of despondency and guilt as the other two deal with their grief
and how to escape it.
