{"id":26383,"date":"2013-06-13T06:03:04","date_gmt":"2013-06-13T13:03:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=26383"},"modified":"2013-06-23T04:28:24","modified_gmt":"2013-06-23T11:28:24","slug":"cafe-de-flore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=26383","title":{"rendered":"Cafe de Flore"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m tempted to skip the tedious reviewing business of summarising plot, characterisation and technical strengths of Cafe de Flore<\/em>, the new film by director Jean-Marc Vallee. It would be easier to simply trot out as many cliches about what love really means as come to mind, for one thing. Lord knows, the film spends much of its time mining these for all their worth. But this would do the film a bit of a disservice \u2013 just a bit \u2013 and in any case, I didn\u2019t end up any wiser about the ineffable nature of true love as when I began. This might be my fault, of course. But bear with me.<\/p>\n

\"Cafe<\/a>
Cafe de Flore – Antoine<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

2011, Canada. Antoine (Kevin Parent) is a DJ, not your run of the mill battered record bag and Technics headphones sort of feller, but a real player. He jets across the Atlantic to do gigs and stuff. He\u2019s almost 40, and ought to be happy. Great job, great kids, beautiful house, loving girlfriend. Yes, there is the matter of Carole, his ex and mother of his daughters, whom he left for Rose (Evelyn Brochu). His parents still love her, and his kids haven\u2019t quite warmed to his new paramour. He\u2019d been with Carole since they were teenagers and bonded over a shared love of 80s music \u2013 The Smiths, The Cure, that sort of thing. (I\u2019m puzzled about about how a semi-Goth\u00a0 from the 80s becomes a super-cool club DJ. But perhaps I\u2019m sweating the small stuff.) \u201cDo you believe in soulmates? I do. I like the concept that there is somebody who is supposed to be with you for ever.\u201d Antoine muses. He and Carole had told each other for years that their love was written in the stars, etc etc. Until, apparently, it was not.<\/p>\n

\"Cafe<\/a>
Cafe de Flore – Jacqueline and Laurent<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

1969. Paris. Jacqueline (Vanessa Paradis) gives birth to a child with Downs\u2019 Syndrome, and her partner does a runner when she refuses to put the child up for adoption. She\u2019s determined not to give up on him though, despite the bleak prognosis – he won\u2019t live past the age of 25, for instance. Tucked away in a grotty, book-lined Parisian garret, she does everything she can do to beat the odds. Laurent (Marin Gerrier \u2013 a really engaging presence, and not because of\/despite his condition) is breast-fed until the age of four to boost his immune system, is fed a daily regime of vitamins to boost his immune system. She reads voraciously about his condition, indulges him incessantly. He\u2019s now 7, and theirs is an intimate, almost inextricably intertwined pas des deux.<\/p>\n

Almost inextricably. One day, Vero (Alice Dubois) turns up at Laurent\u2019s school. Her parents are chic where Jacqueline is frugal, wealthy where she is impoverished. Vero is a Downs\u2019 Syndrome child too: the two take a shine to one another on sight and become inseparable, literally so. It must be pretty rough when the centre of one\u2019s world, the very reason for one\u2019s existence, becomes smitten with someone else without warning. I\u2019m not giving very much away when I say that Jacqueline takes it rather hard.<\/p>\n

What brings the two stories together? There is the reasonable presumption that Vallee \u2013 who past work includes, most noteably, 2005\u2019s C.R.A.Z.Y. \u2013 might have intended a thoughtful meditation on the real meaning of true love. What we have, 40 odd-years apart are two discomfiting menages a trois: Carole shut out from the world she had created with Antoine, Jacqueline from self sufficiency with Laurent. On this point, Vallee does strike the right notes most of the time. It\u2019s always painful playing gooseberry. Carole sleepwalks, has violent disturbing dreams, is most certainly not in a good place even though she does yoga and tries to keep a brave face. Jacqueline, across time and the sea, is curt and tart with Laurent. When the school suggest that it is time for Laurent to move on to a more appropriate institution, she is quietly appalled; when Vero\u2019s parents tell her that they have found the right place, and that they\u2019d be happy to help with the costs given the attachment the two children have for one another, she lets rip with a passion. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned etc etc. Especially when her son is doing the scorning, albeit unknowingly.<\/p>\n

Whether this premise would have been enough to carry the film would be grounds for a good argument. Sadly, it\u2019s one we won\u2019t be having because the link between the two strands is…well, let\u2019s just say that it\u2019s more causative than coincidental. Vallee holds his cards close to his chest: it takes quite some time before we even have anything more than a sniff of what pulls the two stories together: Laurent, Jacqueline and Vero, Antoine, Carole and Rose.<\/p>\n

The thing is this: It\u2019s one thing to make a film founded on an other-worldly premise. But if one insists on stretching credulity, it must be done as incisively and as cleanly as possible. Cafe de Flore is neither of these things. The tempo is uneven, the storyline wilfully fractured, at times jumping from the 1960s to the 2010s without warning: a staccato beat not quite like one of Antoine\u2019s favorite grooves. But elsewhere, Vallee lingers at length in a place, and just as one is lulled into a false sense of continuity and security…<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not just that. Cafe de Flore<\/em> is a sprawling untidy film, ambitious yet unsatisfying. At two hours, it is simply too long: by the time the pieces begin to fit together, one\u2019s patience had already been sorely tested. One wants at least have a sense of where one is being led, but the route is just too digressive and unpredictable. The acting and mise en scene is much the same. The contemporary story hovers too close to the banal to really keep one engaged, Florent the only one who manages to make the best of limited material. Back in the 60s, histrionics are the order of the day with Vanessa Paradis\u2019s Jacqueline over-egging her passion. That said, some of her moments with Laurent \u2013 there\u2019s a bit where mother and child are playing in bed together, for example \u2013 are the most beautiful and touching things you\u2019ll see on a screen all year, I promise you.<\/p>\n

But this isn\u2019t enough to hold things together. Music is supposed to be the key: narrative prods are draped casually across the film, but these are more inside jokes than helpful hints. An incongruous name on an album sleeve. The Cure\u2019s Picture of You. Most infuriatingly, a fleeting reference by Antoine to Sigur Ros\u2019s Svefn-g-englar, a name-drop (a sound-drop?) so obscure that I\u2019m still not entirely sure the reference was deliberate or not. (Look up the song\u2019s 1999 video-promo after watching the film. Don\u2019t cheat.) It all reeks of the self-indulgence that undermines an admittedly intriguing premise. It might be that Vallee\u2019s love for his material was written in the stars: but he might have done himself a favour if he had grounded it in a place accessible for the rest of us.<\/p>\n

Cafe de Flore<\/em> (2011, 120 min, French with Hebrew and English subtitles)
\nWritten and directed by Jean-Marc Vallee; Starring: Vanessa Paradis, Kevin Parent, Helene Florent, Evelyn Brochu, Marin Gerrier, Alice Dubois<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m tempted to skip the tedious reviewing business of summarising plot, characterisation and technical strengths of Cafe de Flore, the new film by director Jean-Marc Vallee. It would be easier to simply trot out as many cliches about what love really means as come to mind, for one thing. Lord knows, the film spends much […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26383\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}