Café de flore: Nothing left but hope

Café de flore, directed by Jean-Marc Vallée of C.R.A.Z.Y. fame, is never less than intelligent and, at its best, is a rapturous experience that lifts the viewer into the film's own fractured bliss.

The film follows two seemingly disparate narrative threads: the first is centred on Antoine (Kevin Parent),whom we later find out is a divorcé from his high school sweetheart. That same sweetheart, Carole (Hélène Florent)— as well as his new lover, Rose (Vanessa Paradis)— define and construct his life: though Antoine is ostensibly the core around which the two women orbit, he is the object rather than the subject of the narrative, an object constructed by Rose and Carole and his own ambivalent desires toward them.

The second narrative, set in Paris 1969, follows Jacqueline, whose husband left her after she refused to give her Down Syndrome-afflicted baby up for adoption. The baby, Laurent (Marin Gerrier), becomes the "angel" of her life. Jacqueline becomes fixated on defying the average lifespan of 25 years for Down Syndrome children by nurturing him with the devotion of her entire life.

Café describes Jacqueline's affection for her child as ‘the symbol of a mythical love,' and the theme of love-as-mythology penetrates both narratives. Each character has an ideal love which they hope for: Carole dreams that Antoine will come back to her and rekindle their love; Rose hopes Antoine won't relapse back into the arms of his ex-wife; Jacqueline hopes her son will feel a sense of belonging in society. But the film shows us how hope can transform into denial of reality, into love not meant to be and existences which are ultimately insupportable. It's a hope which is fuelled only by an unsustainable faith, and Café de flore shows us that hope is sometimes as stifling a feeling as despair.

Music threads its way through the film like the characters' happiness and desire, but of those three it is the only thing which does not falter irretrievably at the end of the film. For Antoine's children, music is the vital trigger which could repair their parents' relationship and bring Antoine and his ex-wife together again. For Antoine, it is the catalyzing force behind his first love—and the film seems to suggest that, at 16, only a force as powerful as music can realize a ‘true' love. For the music-obsessed viewer, the film is a reflection of the way music and memory can intertwine to enhance the pleasure of the former and sear the latter more deeply into our thought patterns. Vallée's informed use of classics such as ‘Faith' by The Cure and ‘Svefn-g-englar' by Sigur Rós both anchor the film to the characters' specific dependencies on music and lift the film from its particular visual context toward broader universal feelings. Unlike many other films whose soundtracks act as background or wallpaper, Café de flore is comfortable switching the two roles, allowing music to dominate and "play" the visual aspects of the film.

My favourite scene featured Antoine and Carole falling in love to The Cure's  "Just Like Heaven", exchanging lines from its verses after their first sexual encounter: ‘show me how you do that trick', ‘the one that makes me laugh, she said.' I was reminded of a choice quote from a friend: "Every relationship when you're 16 is an abusive one." This would prove to be true for at least Carole, who would never kiss another man after Antoine. The powerful pull of adolescent sexuality carried the couple all the way to having children of their own, but its dissolution left one of the lovers dependent on something which no longer existed: the reality of the beloved. The film suggests that nothing is as abusive as romanticism without a concern for the future.

Vallée's occasional digressions into dreamwork and surrealistic landscapes from the subconscious never feel contrived, and the climax of the film— the moment when the two narratives collide— earns its unresolvable ambiguities. The cinematography, too, is beautiful: rich in atmosphere and muted in signification, they draw attention to the foregrounded relationships. But the primary reason for the film's success is the profoundly human ache that its characters portray. Antoine, Carole, Rose, and Jacqueline evoke their own internal conflicts neither through cheap likeability nor unapproachable caricature, but rather projected through the characters' shades of grey, which earn the viewer's empathy. I came to love the characters through the film's indeterminacy, its insistence on perception rather than judgement: Café de flore launches its thematic intention beyond good and evil into that shady, shifty place we so casually call love.