Love Songs (2007) User Reviews

Sing away your sorrows

[Chris Knipp · 8/10 · 11 February 2008]

Forget Jacques Demy if you can—though one of 'Love Songs'' cast members is Chiara Mastroianni, daughter of the Catherine Deneuve of Demy's classic 'The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.' Honoré's 'Inside Paris'/'Dans Paris' had one song written by Alex Beaupain, a duet between Romain Duris and Joana Preiss, sung over the phone, Duris' delivery full of reedy sweetness. This time the director has fulfilled a long-cherished ambition and made a full-fledged contemporary musical, with all the songs penned by Beaupain. It's set in the relatively gritty Bastille section of Paris, and it's about a ménage à trois involving two girls and a boy: Ismael (Louis Garrel), Julie (Ludivine Sagnier), and Alice (Clotilde Hesme, Garrel's girlfriend in his father's 'Regular Lovers'), whose life together leads to sorrow, separation, and resolution. Beaupain and Honoré have collaborated for 'the film on 14 songs. 'Les chansons d'amour' is also the director's third collaboration with Louis Garrel, though he didn't plan it that way originally and Garrel had to convince him he could do a singing role.

This quick follow-up to 'Dans Paris,' which like it, but musically, portrays love problems, family loyalties, and depression with an intermittently light New Wave-ish touch, is divided into three sections: Departure, Absence, and Return. Julie seems to accept Alice in the trio to please Ismael, but she wants him to herself and regrets his refusal to have a child. Perhaps she's imploding, because she drops dead in front of a boite, like River Phoenix in front of the Viper Club, but of natural causes.

Alice considers it only right to move out; she can't take the place of two women, and her bisexuality no longer protects her from the full onslaught of Ismael's (and Garrel's) impetuous charms. Ismael, whom Julie's family adored, moves quickly, if shakily, forward, but Julie's stagnant older sister Jeanne (Mastroiaani), who suffers from survivor guilt, keeps turning up (a little tiresomely) at the trio's apartment. Alice had recently connected with another guy, a Breton musician Gwendal (Yannick Renier, brother of Jérémie). She doesn't seem to need Gwendal any more either, but Gwendal's gay brother Erwann (Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet of Téchiné's 'Strayed') conceives a passion for Ismael and begins stalking him. (Note calling Erwann a "college student" could mislead American readers because 'collège' generally means middle school, and he's very young.) When Erwann keeps turning up, Alice, who works at the same office as Ismael, thinks this is an indirect effort on Gwendal's part to get back together. Ismael realizes what Erwann's up to, though, and at first laughs it off and tells him to get lost.

But Ismael's lost himself—he's half-Jewish and seems to represent the wandering, rootless type; we never see his family or hear of his origin in any detail—and though he may have the gift of good cheer, he doesn't know where he's going, even sexually. As the film ends, he's actually settling into what's become both a romantic and a sexual affair with the determined Erwann--one of those young gay boys who knows early on exactly who he is and what he wants--and begs him, in the film's final line, "Love me less, but love me a long time." Honoré's collaboration on the screenplay with auteur Gael Morel may explain this highly gay-friendly resolution, which will no doubt startle, if not offend, some members of the original Demy generation. But a ménage à trois that's not bi- or gay-friendly wouldn't make much sense—not in this century, which Honoré, whatever his virtues and faults, firmly inhabits.

American viewers aren't as likely to appreciate the many rhymes between French film families and traditions appreciatively noted by Jean-Baptiste Morain in Les Inrockuptibles last June when this film debuted in Paris. What they may grasp and enjoy is the buoyancy and speed of Honoré's film-making, which makes a virtue of low-budget necessity. Harder to tune in to at times is the director's cheerful way with sadness and depression, to be found here as it was in 'Dans Paris.' Some of the songs may feel like wallowing in sorrow, but they're better seen as singing the way out of it. Honoré lets the song come to you straight, without video-ready production numbers or irony, and the actors all do their own natural singing, only occasionally with a little trouble in the lip-syncing of their pre-recorded voices. The trouble is Honoré doesn't seem to play very well stateside, and if 'Inside Paris' got a mediocre reception, the offbeat musical element may make his 'Love Songs' even less accessible to Americans—though the romance between Garrel and Leprince-Ringuet should go down well with gay viewers, and anyone might respond to the warm depiction of a first love. It's not that the songs are hard to take; it's their typically French lightness that may make them hard to grasp in this country, where people are used to being hit over the head. Likewise Louis Garrel's playfulness, to which this director has given increasingly free rein, can be enormously appealing if you're up for it, but seems to rub some audiences, especially Anglo ones, the wrong way. Nonetheless as time goes on this film clearly has passionate devotees all over. Mark Olsen's remark in 'Film Comment' rings true: "Christophe Honoré's films aren't just films you like--you develop weird little crushes on them." The songs in the film have a rich life on YouTube and there you can see the actors and composer performing them at the Divan du Monde in Paris at a CD launching. The audience understandably walked out singing some of the lines. They grow on you.

'Love Songs'/'Chansons d'amour' is part of the Rendez-Vous with French Cinema series 2008 at Lincoln Center Feb. 29-March 9, 2008. US distributor IFC Films, US limited release from March 19, 2008.

How delightfully French - in a good way!

[Chris_Docker · 8/10 · 13 August 2007]

I remember watching Bertolucci's The Dreamers and thinking, "How delightfully French!" Whatever we might think about French hospitality (or lack of it) when we dine in Paris restaurants, France has a cornucopia of national traits that can be a joy and inspiration to experience.

The Dreamers was set against the student riots of the late 60s. Defiance. A willingness to fight for culture! Demonstrations outside cinemas to preserve true art! A gourmet attitude of tolerance in matters of sexuality (admittedly eroded slightly by recent governments). A passion for life. Cigarettes. An atheistic realism. The religion of good taste. A disdain for work - to let the higher faculties soar - we believe.

Against a similar, if more modern background, Les Chansons d'Amour also takes flight. Lifting us in its arms, we have one of those rarest of creatures: an exceedingly French musical. Love, life, poetry, passion, sensitivity, all magnificently exalted in song – quite a lot of songs actually – for your cross-Channel delectation and savouring.

Les Chansons d'Amour starts off fluffily enough – Paris streets, a simple boy-girl relationship. But this is no prudish American musical or its furtive British variant. Before long – in a scene charmingly reminiscent of Singin' in the Rain's couch number - we realise Ismael and his girlfriend Julie are involved in a happy threesome beneath the sheets.

But love cannot be superficial! We do not need the extremes of Danish cinema – this is no Dancer in the Dark. But we will have tragedy! generation class struggles! heartfelt emotion! and aesthetically intellectual challenge! If you please. And the young cast shall be terribly good-looking without being too pretty-pretty. (And white - one might add, more cynically.) But if there are unbearable tensions, we shall elevate them into song. Pianos shall tinkle and guitars will strum. Tears sublimated by lovely voices as, "the rain falls without a care." Sexual details tastefully and unashamedly scattered through the lyrics.

The whole film reeks of style within a suitably unostentatious budget. When Julie unexpectedly collapses at a rock concert, imaginative cinematography intersperses black and white stills of a matter-of-fact ambulance crew with tunefully segued flashbacks. We try to piece together what has happened. The monochrome medical assistants have a documentary-like reality. At other times, clever uses of colour tone cue the intended attitude we should take. Cold and serious (blue) with old-fashioned parents. Or warm and romantic (reds and browns) to forestall any opposition to a homoerotic flirtation (All shades of sexual preference are treated with the same romantic poetry: focus on the person, not their gender, the film seems to say.) If this were a British or American production, the pace would be, "this is what's about to happen, this is what's happening now, and this is what's just happened." Audiences at feelgood musicals are not known for their attention skills. Les Chansons d'Amour, in sharp contrast, is fast-moving and expects you to keep up. Blink and you will have missed a plot development. Are you awake at the back? Isn't cinema for adults as well? A strength of the script and the songs is that there is never any hint of caricature or parody. When they sing, they mean what they say as much as if they had said it. They do not inhabit the fantasy land, however wonderful, of Gene Kelly dancing in puddles, or Julie Andrews running up hillsides. They can get away with lines like, "Your body like a flow of lava washing over me," and make it sound sexy and romantic.

I find the end result is genuinely moving.

But how will the film fare outside of its home country? The songs make you want to buy the soundtrack – if you can speak French. It is not the standard art-house fare that lovers of subtitled films make into a cinematic diet. Les Chansons d'Amour is unashamedly commercial. But I just wish there were more 'commercial' films like this.

daringly explicit sexual ideology

[merveillesxx · 8/10 · 5 November 2007]

In World Film Festival 2005, Alain Resnais's Not On The Lips (2003, B) gave me a good sleep, on the contrary, Honore's Love Song is such the film which I thoroughly enjoy. Consciously, I accept the nature of musical film (many friends of mine can't resist when the character suddenly sings a song), but the hardest part is the classical style of music (or an old-fashioned one). Fortunately, this film used the modern pop-rock music which is really my type.

Love Songs is like a sequel for Inside Paris (2006, A+), still portrayed about Parisian people in intellectual way (mostly presented via the dialogs). The film always gave me a surprise, but the most interesting one is the third part that motioned about gay issue. From my experience, there are a lot of gay movies but I rarely see a gay musical film. The ending also made a sexual ideology of the film daringly explicit. But I can feel that many audiences can't accept the conclusion of Love Songs. But I desirably love it, very suitable of the title "Love Songs", because Love is the universal language.

Things I can observe from Love Songs (It may be my wrong understanding) 1) The scenes that all three main characters sleeping on the same bed was possibly inspired from Scene from the Marriage (1973, Ingmar Bergman) 2) There was a "Nobody Knows" poster in the gay character's room. (I'm not sure about its purpose.)

A Wonderful Surprise

[hollyfairbanks-usa · 9/10 · 11 April 2008]

I wonder why this gem of a film was released in secret, at least in the USA. I was literally dragged to see it by some friends - to whom I'll be eternally grateful. The film lives on its own with glances to the great Jacques Demy. Rains and umbrellas, songs and impossible love. Louis Garrel must be, by now, considered one of the greatest film presences of the new millennium. He is devastating and his relationship with the doomed Ludivine Sagnier has all the warmth and sexiness of the great romances. The entrance of the adorable Gregoire Leprince-Ruignet takes all our preconceptions and turns them around. This sensual coupling full of innocence has the power to seal a tragedy with love. I adored this movie and the makers should protest vigorously as the way the film was distributed in the United States.

"Love me less, but love me a long time..."

[Benedict_Cumberbatch · 30 July 2008]

I've been a fan of Louis Garrel ("The Dreamers") and Ludivine Sagnier ("Swimming Pool") for a few years now, so when I heard they were starring in a romance musical, I was really excited. "Les Chansons d'Amour" aka "Love Songs" met, actually exceeded, my expectations. The film is a gorgeous, sometimes poignant and subtly funny look at love and (straight, bisexual, homosexual) relationships in contemporary Paris. Its adorably improvised musical sequences, the beauty of the music and locations, the chemistry of the ensemble cast (Chiara Mastroianni, who looks a lot like her father, the late Marcello Mastroianni, delivers a captivating performance as Sagnier's sister), all add up to the enchanting final result. This is the third film director Christophe Honoré makes with Louis Garrel (after 'Ma Mère' and 'Dans Paris'), and they announced a sequel for 2011. I will definitely check it, but it will be hard to top "Love Songs", since it ended perfectly in my eyes. Whether the sequel will disappoint or not is another story; for now, just enjoy the real gem that these chansons are... "love me less, but love me a long time". 10/10.

I'm the bridge between your two banks..

[lastliberal · 7/10 · 22 June 2008]

Paris, romance, love songs, and maybe a little Pedro Almodovar mixed in.

Love Songs is just that - fourteen love songs, all very beautiful, probably available on You Tube, tied together with some dialog.

I'm not impressed with Louis Garrel, but maybe I am not supposed to be.

It is Ludivine Sagnier (Paris, je t'aime, Swimming Pool, 8 femmes) that sets my heart a flutter, whether she is singing or discussing the intricacies of three-way sex with her mum. No, there is no sex in the film, it's a romance.

Clotilde Hesme is the third member of the menage a trois.

Part 1 ended in a manner that I did not expect in a romantic film.

Everything changed after the tragedy and a sadness came over the film as people struggled to find love and deal with loss.

It was all about the music, however, and, in that sense, it was a good film.

A contemporary (timeless?) film about human relationships

[a25112 · 9/10 · 26 October 2010]

How to put into words a film with this sensorial density? It's clearly not the simplest task. "Congratulations Christophe Honoré" could be a good approach, maybe the best.

As a Portuguese, a traditional nation in the "European standards", I may say that this film surpasses my bounds when speaking of, let's say, "relational experimentalism". Even so, I found it astoundingly beautiful and I guess that picking-up the gay issue would be to diminish a film about life and what we make of it in our nowadays living.

To have lived in France for over a year, eventually helped me out to remark some interesting French particularities in the characters.

I found the humor in this film to be typically French. There's a scene were Ismael is Wrapping a pillow making a baby of it, asking everybody in the room to remain silent not to wake up the child that had just gotten asleep. Then, unexpectedly, he throws the "baby" right out of the window as he gets tired of the staging. This kind of uncompromising performances, risking the ridiculous, were undoubtedly a "déjà vu" for me.

The music is also a key element in the film and gives it a Parisian melancholical aura. The music is often used by 2 or more characters in the form of a dialog where they show their feelings and points of view. As they sing, the scenes are incredible well filmed either outdoor, in the endless avenues of Paris, or indoor in the cosiness of a warm bed in a cold winter night. Sometimes I felt as I was one of the characters right in the scene.

The anguish, the indecision and above all, the solitude are the marking subjects in a film that exposes in a crude manner how individualistic the society is becoming in France, and why not, in Europe.

It's a contemporary (timeless?) film about human relationships. In my opinion, the antithesis of the blockbuster cinema: The extravagance is replaced by beauty, the free nudity is replaced by sensuality and the easy laugh is avoided. The dialogs are intelligent, complex and they have ambiguous interpretation.

At the end of the movie, a phrase synthesizes it all: "Love me less but for a long time".

To assume the compromise revoking the emotional hurricane brought by fleeting relations will bring peace, at last.

Hit and miss musical pastiche

[howie73 · 7/10 · 23 April 2008]

Christophe Honoré's follow-up to Dans Paris is a disappointingly affair, that knowingly borrows from Godard and Demy but does little to convince the viewer that Honoré has anything new to tell us about cinema today.

The main problem with this film is the inclusion of too many songs - 13 in fact, sung by most characters. Unfortunately, the strong narrative threads of the film suffer as a result of these constant musical interruptions which play as continuations of the realist style Honoré adopts. Unlike Dancer in the Dark, where musicality was an extension of fantasy, Honoré, in contrast, plays his musical interludes too close to the story and awkwardly cuts away unexpectedly on many occasions.

The menage á trois story is loosely constructed and unconvincing at times, while the conversion of the male lead to homosexuality is not convincingly realised.

After Dans Paris, I expected better but it's not to say this film doesn't have many great moments.

The Unbearable Lightness of... Life?

[Pasky · 9/10 · 12 December 2007]

I wish I could see this film at least another 3 or 4 times, before making this comment, but I can't wait telling the world (ah ah) how much I loved it! This film is a huge and wonderful homage to a great deal of things. 'Great things' such as love, life, death... and more 'minor things' (?) such as youth, friendship, music, Paris, actors and actresses, directors such as Stanley Donen, Jacques Demy, etc. And still, this film manages to stay incredibly fresh, new, full of veiled references (I couldn't help smiling with delight, when seeing Chiara Mastroianni under her transparent umbrella, a reference to her mother, Catherine Deneuve, in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg). And the film goes on like that, like on a tight rope, with actors perched on their frail voices, never ridiculous, always moving and/or witty. It keeps moving (never a dull moment) and it keeps moving you. Never vulgar, never cheap, never shocking. A marvel of lightness. Could it be the unbearable lightness of what we call life?

good movie, too gay

[kaput450 · 7/10 · 12 May 2008]

I must say I am not gay but this is good if you can get past that. A movie about love and loss. I thought there was goodness in this film. It is kind of a 50/50 song and acting film. Acting is good, I liked the songs as well.

Starts with a 3some with 2 girls and a guy. Initiated by the girl in the relationship. For some strange reason the main girl dies. The natural thing would be for the remaining 2 to figure it out but for some reason the dude gets gay.

I guess the whole point is, you can love anyone.

Also gays love musicals!

If you are homophobic and against musicals, pass it, otherwise it is a pretty good movie.

A Nutshell Review: Love Songs

[DICK STEEL · 4/10 · 12 October 2008]

In the running for the Palme d'Or in last year's Cannes Film Festival, Love Songs by Christophe Honore was nothing like what the writeup used in the festival synopsis would have let you believe. Either that, or I'm really dense to have trusted what was essentially a verbatim recap of only the first of three segments that this movie was split into – Departure, Absence and Return.

Rather than dwell on the non-existent and off screen manège-a-trios, it's more of a tale of grief and the handling of grief after personal tragedy. It seemed like an exploration of venturing into the extremes, of being experimental for the sheer thrill of it, of trying to lead a vastly different lifestyle in other to drown all memories of the deceased, of numbing oneself in excessive, meaningless sex. I would have welcomed the viewpoints of family members in depth, as the movie did spend some time to set up those characters, only to have relegated them with sideshow treatment, nothing more than caricatures from parents who try to engage their child's friends in order to discover hidden secrets unknown to them, to siblings who hang around trying to come to grips with the loss, only to find some questionable , eyebrow raising antics leading to assumptions and quick conclusions.

As a musical, the songs did feel a little out of place when the characters start to break into them, and seriously, I thought the lyrics could have been lost in translation, as sometimes I could not see how they either move the narrative forward, or speak from the heart the innermost thoughts from the characters mouthing those words. At some points it really felt a little bit forced, and have left one wondering about the relevance of those phrases sung, so while the meaning have probably been lost in me, it might be of relevance to French speakers.

While the movie stars Louis Garrel, Ludivine Sagnier and Clotilde Hesme, the bulk of the screen time belonged to Garrel's Ismael. The threesome relationship between their characters weren't exactly explained, only that they are strange bedfellows sharing their nights together. While Sagnier's Julie did reveal her uneasiness at such an arrangement, Hesme's Alice already knows of the boundaries within their relationships that she cannot cross, and as they toy around those forbidden lines, any sense of angst and unhappiness get sung away quite fleetingly.

In short, it's a film that lacked some crucial emotional punch, preferring to just scratch the surface and try to get away with it. Definitely trying to appeal to the niche crowd with its dalliances with hetero/lesbian/gay themes, but ultimately, came across as very forced and pretentious, trying to hammer a square peg into a round hole, if you can pardon the pun. Disappointing stuff.

Unabashedly French

[bill38112 · 9/10 · 7 July 2008]

In my part of the USA, it is rare to come across a film like this. It makes no attempt to compromise its Parisian point of view for American audiences. This film allows an American audience the chance to get a glimpse from the perspective of the contemporary French young adult. There are plenty of French geographic and political reference to confuse, but they, like the Parisian scenes, just give the film its identity.

Others have provided detailed synopses of the story. I would rather you just take it as it comes and enjoy how different the plot development is. As a matter of fact, watch this film and try to appreciate how different it is from the ordinary American fare…no simple boy meets girl romance here. These beautiful people aren't young, chic urbanites wearing designer clothes they can't afford, living in apartments featured in Architectural Digest. We have three young women (Ludivine Sagnier, Clotilde Hesme, and Chiara Mastroianni) who lack the assistance of a personal shopper or a Beverly Hills stylist, but do not lack beauty or sensuality. Also, as a 59 year old man, I have to mention Brigitte Roüan, who shows how attractive a French grandmother can be. The men are similarly attractive. Louis Garrel demonstrates why he is currently the hottest actor in France. Newcomer Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet is disarmingly charming.

But this is a musical. You will find no potential American Idols here. The actors are not going to dazzle you with vocal gymnastics. The numbers have no clever arrangements or over produced orchestration. You have evocative lyrics set to a score reminiscent of US folk music in the 1960s or more exactly, French coffee houses. One word of caution, the English subtitles are quite misleading at times. My college French is a little rusty, but a review of the French subtitles gave me an appreciation of how descriptive the lyrics are.

Finally, there is no gratuitous violence or nudity, but look for the number Ma Memoire Sale (My Soiled Memory), where Ismael begs to be cleansed of the painful memory of his lost love. Some may be shocked at the scene, but you can't deny the passion and pain that permeates the number.

I have downloaded the soundtrack and ordered the DVD for this is like a good French dish, an experience to linger over.

One of the worst movies ever, in any language!

[mamlukman · 2/10 · 1 June 2010]

Wow. I read all the reviews, and the only conclusion I can come to is that all the other reviewers are gay. I'm not. I actually had to close my eyes during a certain scene. I really have no interest in seeing this sort of thing. This was a boring movie about uninteresting people. I'll go further: not just uninteresting, they inspired a sort of low-level loathing, although the main character eventually earned a high-level loathing. There was no cuteness, no clever dialog, no tension, no interesting characters. Songs? Why? They were just out of place. Blah. Now it COULD have been a much better movie--perhaps exploring different ways relatives and friends reacted to her death, or the relationship between Alice and the male character. Alice was just ignored after the tragedy. Does that make sense? Poor Ludivine, she must have needed the money to take this role.

Love and Death in 2007 France

[FabienMorisset · 10/10 · 10 June 2007]

Just out of the theatre, I would like to share my impressions about "Les Chansons d'Amour".

This movie is a rare jewel which is even more precious as France is changing so quickly at the moment. It reminds us that, at the end of the day, we are the only ones able to chose our own lives if not death. Actors and actresses are just perfect. Brigitte Rouan and Chiara Mastroiani in particular make you believe in a very vivid way that this French family exists somewhere.

I don't want to say anything about the storyline which is so moving. I began to cry at the first picture in black and white which... but I'd better stop right here.

I'm glad I bought the cd, I'm going to listen to it all evening.

I am so happy that such a movie exists.

Thank you (again) Christophe Honoré.

beautiful

[adrianduke · 10/10 · 20 December 2007]

A typically powerful French film proving France as a great film making country! It is a dark comedy, with an intriguing structure...variously sad, funny and bizarre in equal measures. Some have described it as a musical comedy. It is not!

Intelligently choreographed performances from Louis Garrel as the central character, Ismael, from Ludivine Sagnier as his girlfriend Julie, from Clotilde Hesme as Alice, the third character in the love triangle. Chiara Mastroianni puts in a strong performance as Julie's sister, Jeanne.

Lovely images of grey, wintery Paris thanks to Rémy Chevrin; songs I want to hear again; memorable images of confused emotions and allegiances, and like Amelie,Delicatessen or Caché, it will stay with me a long time.

Brilliant, thanks Christophe!

Beautiful in every way.

[dead47548 · 9/10 · 22 January 2009]

A perfect blend of playfulness, joy, sexuality and complete and utter tragedy. All of this is weaved in through the story and, more importantly, the songs themselves. The actors expertly portray every moment of it all, pouring their hearts into the songs whether it's a bouncy battle between two lovers with another lover in between or a lonely sister wishing for just one more hour of hope. I don't want to spoil a really big moment that provides all of that tragedy, but something happens relatively early on that floored me. Louis Garrel is an excellent lead and portal into all of these different people, and the supporting cast rounds everything off without missing a beat. The beautiful Ludivine Sagnier, the heartfelt Chiara Mastroianni and one of the most gorgeous women I've ever seen, Clotilde Hesme, are all brilliant. It swept me off my feet practically right off the bat and kept me floating throughout the whole thing. A fantastic movie, one of my favorites of '08 and of all time, for that matter.

real "chansons" and real love, including ... gay love

[jarabaa · 19 April 2011]

The most notable feature of this film has to be the fact that it contains a rather remarkable gay love story. Yes, two men. This instantly explains the poor distribution of the film (above all in the US) which other reviewers seem to find baffling. Well, it's not perplexing at all: the prevailing judgment in the film distribution world in the United States is that anything containing male homosexuality is box office poison, offensive to Christians, etc. In fact, the Ismael/Erwann romance, the new love which resolves the protagonist's lost love, is strikingly inconspicuous in all the promotional material associated with "Les Chansons" - posters, images, cast list (Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet, who plays Erwann, is completely sidelined, though his character is as important as Ludivine Sagnier's). But clearly hiding Erwann and the gay theme from view didn't help: "Les Chansons" had to be hidden from the viewers altogether. It's nothing new where (male) gay content is concerned. As we know, getting "Brokeback Mountain" made and distributed was a long, wearying, obstacle-ridden business, and the film was deliberately snubbed at the Oscars. Similar difficulties attend every other film in which there is any representation of gay men doing what they do - i.e. making love to other men. In "Les Chansons" the problem is all the more acute, because one of the men doesn't seem to be gay at all ... so it appears that he chooses homosexual love.

And this is one of the elements which make "Les Chanson" unique - it's unusual, to say the least, to encounter the implicit suggestion that a male character with heterosexual experience (documented in the film) might opt in favour of gay love. The two men in question also constitute an original, even startling combination - just as distinctive and unforgettable as the two lovers in "Brokeback".

This is a beautiful and outstanding film, so it is good to see that 19 of the 24 reviews here (before mine) say that. But it's disturbing that even here on IMDb all 5 negative reviews (below) focus their disdain and hostility on the gay content. One reviewer details his "loathing", dismissing all the rest of us (who like the film) as gay, another calls the film "too gay", another attacks the "sleaze" and "downmarket sex". (There are even a few positive reviews here which go all nervous and jittery about the Ismael/Erwann romance.) Hmmmmmmm! This is the 21st century.

Otherwise, "Les Chansons" is remarkable for its vision of Paris, especially the streets of Paris, and of course for ... les chansons. It is a most intriguing, off-beat form of musical - the way in which the actors utter their songs is very different from conventional "singing": to such a degree that one has to pay attention to note that they really ARE singing. But it is in fact real singing, and these are real songs. Songs of love, chansons d'amour.

It's Always Foul Weather

[writers_reign · 4/10 · 14 December 2007]

It is, of course, possible that I watched a different film to the previous posters, it is equally possible that the previous posters have never seen a Real musical or, indeed a Real French film. Suffice it to say that were it not for Brigitte Rouan and Chirara Mastroianni this would have been a total disaster. If ever two young people deserved each other those people are Ludo Sagnier and Lou Garrel - and if he would hit on Ludo off-screen and keep away from Valeria I'd be a much happier bunny. Christophe Honore has a penchant for sleaze and chances are he figured that the problem with his Ma Mere was that it needed saccharine music and lyrics to disguise the sleaze (Ma Mere, in case you missed it was the one where Lou Garrel got off with his ma, Isabelle Huppert and masturbated beside her corpse though on reflection I guess music and lyrics couldn't have done that much to save it) so this time around he laces the down-market sex with interchangeable melodies having only a beat rather than a tune and lyrics as banal as those Demy wrote for Les Paraplueis de Cherbourg. On the other hand there are some nice location shots of Paris but even here Honore can't resist having Sagnier check out a movie at the Brady, a cinema where Catherine Breillat films play and where Deep Throat played for a couple of years. Go if you must.

SO GOOD you forget that it's a musical!

[pauliebleeker · 9/10 · 31 July 2008]

*contains minor spoilers after dotted line

I was really reluctant to see another Honoré-Garrel pairing, as the last one I saw (Ma Mère) was seriously awful, to add to it, Les Chansons d'Amour is a musical. Not being a fan of musicals AT ALL, Honoré flawlessly intertwined the singing, the acting, and the plot so well that without the singing, the movie would be totally incomplete (unlike other musicals where it's the obvious song & dance numbers that take away from the film). Another feat of this film, is the new representation of romantic love, between men, something we rarely see in film (if not stereotypical portrayals of gay men). After this film, you leave not seeing it as another "brokeback mountain type gay man's film" but as love between people, regardless of gender. Not uncommon of Honoré or Garrel's work, Les Chansons d'Amour is wrapped around a somewhat "taboo" plot of threesomes and young homosexual love. The overall acting was great, especially Louis Garrel. Garrel plays Ismaël so amazingly charming that you quickly fall in love with him. You begin to feel his pain, to the point where you completely understand why he does everything he does in the film. Not to be out done, Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet, played Erwann so seductively that you almost forget how weirdly obsessive his character is. At times, I found myself teetering back and forth between rooting for Erwann to win his love and for him to fail miserably. The only reason why I gave this film a 9/10 is for minor reasons and annoyance with some of the side-plots of the film. With that said, Les Chansons d'Amour has flown under the radars for too long (completely overshadowed by Brokeback Mountain, not nearly as good as Les Chansons d'Amour) and it would be a bad move to miss out on this fine specimen of cinematic storytelling.

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The dynamic between Ismaël and Erwann is so complicated and unorthodoxly beautiful,that at the end of the film you leave completely unsure if Ismaël really loves Erwann, but you don't really care because you know that for the present moment they need each other, maybe not forever but for the "now".

Beautiful and very French tale of love, death and discovery

[dtraitel · 10/10 · 8 November 2020]

Another film where it's best not to know too much about it. It is a musical - the music is a bit dated at this point (2020), but if you relate it back to the mid 2000s, it will make sense . Suffice it to say that Louis Garel is probably at his most charming, the women are excellent, the younger teenage character is acted perfected, the music is very French (quirky, lyrics that an English speaking audience might scratch their head at), but it is actually perfect, very real, very raw, not polished and the arc of the story and the character development will probably affect you profoundly if you have any romanticism in you. Somewhat surprising twists in the way that a young person's life often takes. I was deeply affected the first time I saw this and have come back to the film several times over the last 10 years, each time loving it as much as the first viewing. A film to be cherished.

watched it several times

[SevgiCenan · 9/10 · 18 September 2018]

This is one of my favourite movies. I watched it several times with my friends. I listen to its soundtrack all the time and Louis Garrel has a lovely voice with a husky tone. Movie is happy and sad and funny with its awkward moments. Watch it on a cold winter night and let the love warm up your soul.

This is not your average sappy musical

[KylieRempel · 9/10 · 8 May 2013]

I have watched this movie, over and over and over again this year. I get the songs stuck in my head all the time.

It's not your average boy meets girl musical. In this French musical, boy 1 and girl 1 are dating girl 2. They're happy and in for the most part in love as a triad.

Then tragedy strikes their happy triad in a totally believable way. Suddenly boy 1 and girl 2 are left adrift. Boy 1 meets boy 2. Girl 2 has her own problems.

It's a beautifully crafted piece of French cinema. Louis Garrel shines as Ismael and Ludivine Sagnier also does well as Julie.

It's a movie, where the first time you watch it, you're never sure how it will turn out and the music is lovely and catchy. It's modern romance - things aren't so simple, people don't necessarily live happily ever after and it's refreshing to see that on film.

Not what I expected but I LOVED it

[preppy-3 · 9/10 · 13 August 2010]

DEFINITE SPOILERS--GIVES AWAY THE ENDING TOO.

This takes place in Paris (it's subtitled). There's three people who are sleeping and having sex together--Julie (Ludivine Sagnier), Alice (Clotilde Hesme) and Ismael (Louis Garrel). Then Julie dies suddenly of a blood clot. Alice seems to move on but Louis can't. Then a handsome young gay man named Erwann (Gregoire Leprince-Ringuet) falls in love with him. They have sex but is it what Ismael wants? The ending has a passionate kiss between Ismael and Erwann so I think they end up together.

I'm going to ignore some of the homophobic reviews this movies has gotten. It's really sad in this day and age that people get so upset by seeing guys hug and kiss (by the way there's no explicit sex or gratuitous nudity here--unless you count the quick look at Erwann's butt). I found the movie involving and beautiful to watch. Also the gay sex and characters are handled realistically without dragging in stereotypes or offensive remarks. Even better it shows the main character getting over his loss. Sure, it's with a guy. So? That shouldn't be such a big deal. The sequence where the two guys start kissing and undressing to have sex is easily the most erotic and moving part of the movie. All the acting is good and everybody can sing. The songs fit the story perfectly. To be honest they're unmemorable but none of them are bad. This seems to mirror (in structure) "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg". It's in three sections like that movie but, other than that, the movie is totally different. It might not mean anything but I noticed it. This was barely released in the US (the ending might have something to do with that) but I caught it on the Sundance channel and LOVED it. Well worth catching but if you're a homophobic jerk don't bother.

I saw myself in that film

[malta54 · 9/10 · 19 March 2009]

I just saw myself in the film as "Erwann" and discovered how the director successfully depicted homosexuality in such a pure and romantic way. Not putting "love" any borders is really the strongest part of the film. Ludivine Sagnier is the strongest candidate for being the new Catherine Deneuve of France. I think the new stars of France are Ludivine Sagnier and Benoit Magimel. Thanks to French cinema for having such nice actors, actresses, directors and producers. But I just waited a popular love song which all the world knows among all these epique ones. Another concern of mine is about the cross-cultural roleplaying experiences of French actors and actresses. They exist generally in French oriented films. I just want to see all these players co-playing with other countries' roleplayers and directors too.

beautiful as Garrel

[sushamgupta · 9/10 · 18 May 2021]

The film is as beautiful as Garrell himself.

Enchanting. A little beaut. Simple but charming.