Canada’s whiz kid filmmaker Jean-Marc Vallée makes beautifully structured films that manage to hit our psyches, emotions, intellect and senses. He mixes elements of psychic phenomena with the hard facts of love and loss in a beautiful package. The director of Martin Scorsese’s The Young Victoria has written his own screenplay that some believe is autobiographical, depicting his turbulent personal life at the time Victoria was released. It’s only guesswork, but there are eerie similarities onscreen.
The Story Quebec
Antoine, a renowned Montreal DJ (Kevin Parent) is in Paris wondering what he’s doing there. He’s skedded to do a show, but he’s far from home and something is tugging at him. His marriage is ending and he’s taking up with a woman his kids call “the bimbo”. We feel his dislocation as he puts his ear buds and rocks out to the tunes in a manic fashion. It brings to mind Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now – another lost soul who knows he should be elsewhere.
Paris, France
A young married woman in Paris in the late sixties gives birth to a son with Down’s syndrome. Her husband tells her they should put him in an institution but she won’t hear of it. He leaves and it’s just Jacqueline (Vanessa Paradis) and little Antoine against the world, united in a close and loving relationship. Jacqueline is a strong person, a lioness, who thinks nothing of confronting people who stare at Antoine or gets in their way. She’s not an entirely sympathetic character but you certainly identify with that endless love for her child. She guards him from the cruel world that may one day take him from her.
Love
Antoine meets Carole, another Down’s child with whom he forms a passionate friendship. They can’t bear being apart and become disruptive when they are separated. It’s painful to see Jacqueline physically have to rip them from each other, screaming. Carole’s parents allow them to visit but rescind the offer sometime later. It’s an impossible situation.
What Does It Mean?
Between the scenes of the DJ and Jacqueline, there are shots of an airplane cruising through the skies. Who is going somewhere and why? Is it Antoine and the bimbo on their honeymoon? Is it Antoine returning to his family? There’s a recurring image of a London Beefeater who haunts Antoine the DJ in the crowds at his shows, in a reflection in a door, on the street at night, a reminder of the alcoholism that runs through his family. Valle has inserted subtle and perhaps even subliminal messages throughout the film. There’s a psychic who advises the DJ’s hopelessly depressed wife as she tries to manage alone, horrific dreams in both lead characters and a feeling of floating through one’s emotions. Vallée paints a maddening and sinister world that can’t be known or depended upon. Promises are broken and unexpected things occur that have long-lasting effects.
Paradis' magic
The performances are outstanding, especially Paradis as the devoted, love crazy mother. [Yes she’s Johnny Depp’s long-term partner and the mother of his children]. She is on fire as Jacqueline in a role that needs to be nominated for its sheer force. Paradis is crazy, brilliant, and fully realised as Jacqueline.
Café de Flore is not to be missed.
In theatres now.
Anne Brodie - I review films each week on Corus and Rogers TV and for Metro News Canada, AskMen.com and Monsters and Critics. I profile celebrities for ...
