There’s a distinct reason for the onslaught of love stories
through the ages
– love is the one universal emotion that communicates seamlessly
from culture to culture. So for every violent film that tries to
expose truth about emotion through conflict, there are two or three
that try once again to find that universal truth about love, if
there is one.
There’s a distinct reason for the onslaught of love stories through the ages – love is the one universal emotion that communicates seamlessly from culture to culture. So for every violent film that tries to expose truth about emotion through conflict, there are two or three that try once again to find that universal truth about love, if there is one.
But how many films deal with one of the pains of love, that love which feels so real for one, yet is unrequited for the other?
This unrequited love is the subject of the wicked, slightly flawed but altogether entertaining comedy “He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not,” which arrives on these shores from France, one of the great filmmaking countries.
The film is the beloved French actress Audrey Tautou’s follow-up to “Amelie,” which had a run in art houses in this country for nearly a year and shocked the world when it was nominated for five American Oscars.
Tautou, who has a sweet, delicate tartness, chose this dark look at love in order to give viewers the impression that her character of Amelie is not etched in stone. She gets the chance to do a complete about-face in “He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not.”
The film opens like a conventional love story, complete with the extraordianary color palate that exemplifies French movies. Angelique (Audrey Tautou) shows up at the local flower shop to buy one single rose for her new love, Loic (Samuel Le Bihan), who is a respected cardiologist.
Angelique definitely has caught the love bug, and we go along with her, believing her feelings for Loic are based in sound logic.
But, alas, something is fishy in this small French suburb, because Loic is married and appears to be deeply in love with his wife Rachel (Isabelle Carre), a lawer who is six months pregnant.
Angelique is so convinced that Loic is her lover that she tells her best friend Heloise (Sophie Guillemin) that he is going to leave his wife, and they will then live happily ever after. It is now becoming apparent that we are looking at a delusional person when it comes to Angelique. Her reality is perception, and she has incorrectly perceived that Loic is in love with her, which now is starting to come into doubt.
Angelique takes a job house-sitting next door to Loic and his family, which just draws her more and more into her own truth. She is convinced of her love, and then the film takes a most delightful turn, one that shows just what a compelling artform cinema really is.
In a staggering backward montage halfway through the film, we go right back to the beginning and see the same story, this time through Loic’s eyes. It begins to come to light that Angelique has taken some liberties with her story, and, just like in Kurosawa’s “Rashomon,” we get an entirely different picture when Loic tells his version.
“He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not” is a completely dark, sometimes hilarious look at unrequited love. Tautou’s character goes from sweet to mean-spirited, but we are looking at a person who is suffering from psychosis and mad delusion. Some of Angelique’s actions in the second half of the film are shocking, because we know that Loic doesn’t deserve her wrath because he hardly knows her. These minor annoyances aside, “He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not” brilliantly gets to the heart of a love story that defies convention.
HE LOVES ME, HE LOVES ME NOT (A LA FOILE … PAS DU TOUT). Written and directed by Laetitia Colombani. With Audrey Tautou, Samuel Le Bihan, Isabelle Carre, Clement Sibony and Sophie Guillemin. Not Rated (Would probably be PG-13 for mature themes), 95 minutes. In French with English subtitles. Now playing at select Bay Area theaters.
