Christophe Honoré, 2007
“Love me less, but love me for a long time”
And so it goes in hot-shot Honorè’s cute and dark and rather French musical romance. Opening with some farcical bed-hopping borrowed from Ozon’s masterpiece Water Drops On Burning Rocks (which, as does Love Songs, stars Ludivine Sagnier) in its portrayal of an actually-French ménage à trois, it then references Honorè’s After Him (also screening at FFF) and The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg (a couple times) in the first few minutes, but soon gives way stylistically, emotionally, and even aurally to become - of course! – the Buffy musical episode. Utilising both an emotional lightness and an array of comedic prop artifice to inform everything in sight, the first act is actually kinda moving, and the tunes are sunny and funny and the best kind of cute. Which is nice.
But it’s after tragedy that the sun really starts shinin’: the wonderful Louis Garrel cannot sing his way back in time, and his inability to cope fucks with everyone’s shit: his various family members become increasingly worried and increasingly involved in his home life, sleeping around isn’t helping and neither is the unrequited affection from a cute boy actually named ‘Erwann’. But Honorè saves his most wonderful notion for last: with Garrel’s heart a minefield of wretched memories, he – totally amazingly – finds salvation not in the arms of love anew, but in a kind of love he can deal with; one that feels completely authentic, and infinitely more considered and warm and generous than fucking “LOVE” saving the day.
