Love Songs Movie Review
The Paris of Christophe Honoré’s “Love Songs” (“Les Chansons d’Amour”) belongs unmistakably to the present. Its residents talk on cellphones and drop the name of Nicolas Sarkozy (still an aspirant to the Élysée Palace rather than an occupant when the movie was being shot). But they also dwell, just as noticeably, in the Paris of classic French movies — in a vague, bracing atmosphere of good old Nouvelle Vague.
The opening titles present the surnames of the actors in unadorned block capitals, à la mid-’60s Jean-Luc Godard, while the camera poetically prowls the streets of the city. And, among other sly quotations, an early shot of a couple reading in bed evokes a memorable, much-reproduced image from François Truffaut’s “Bed and Board.”
Except that, in this case, the couple is a threesome. Ismaël (the mischievous and soulful Louis Garrel) and his live-in girlfriend, Julie (Ludivine Sagnier), have expanded their arrangement to include Ismaël’s co-worker Alice (Clotilde Hesme), an addition that fascinates Julie’s mother (Brigitte Roüan). But the girl-boy-girl threesome, which turns out to be short-lived, is perhaps the most straightforward emotional configuration in this odd, witty, touching film. Eventually, you see, Alice — who insists early on that her primary sexual interests are in women and celibacy — takes up with a young Breton man named Gwendal (Yannick Renier), whose younger brother, Erwann (Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet), develops a crush on Ismaël, who is also the object of nonsexual stalkerish attention from Julie’s older sister, Jeanne (Chiara Mastroianni).
Source: NYTimes
