Café de flore
Jean-Marc Vallée's latest is emotionally resonant, aesthetically ambitious.
SCREENINGS:
Monday, September 12, 10 p.m.
Princess of Wales Theatre (284 King Street West)
Wednesday, September 14, 11:45 a.m.
TIFF Bell Lightbox 2 (350 King Street West)
Expectations for Vallée’s first Quebecois feature after the runaway success of C.R.A.Z.Y. in 2005 are high. And darn it if Vallée doesn’t wear himself out trying to meet them. Café de flore wades into the fraught romantic ménage à trois involving nearly-40 Montreal DJ Antoine (Kevin Parent); his first girlfriend turned mother to his two daughters turned ex-wife, Carole (Hélène Florent); and new blond plaything, Rose (Evelyne Brochu). It also cuts back to Paris in 1969, where a similar dynamic is playing out between a single mother (Vanessa Paradis), her mentally handicapped son (Marin Gerrier), and his new playmate. The twinned struggles of jealousy, resentment, and disappointment suggest a transcendent connection between the two stories, almost as if they’re living in each others’ dreams.
As with C.R.A.Z.Y., music (and especially the title love song) figures prominently in the film—though licensing Pink Floyd and Cure tracks just seems show-offish. Still, Café de flore is an expert, polished piece of filmmaking, even if, in its barely abstruse narrative doubling, it feels a bit like stripped-down Apichatpong or Coles Notes Kieślowski. Still, Vallée handles the film’s relationships with such credible depth and maturity that we can forgive the metaphysical stuff for betraying his breathless aesthetic ambition.