Starring: Audrey Tautou, Romain Duris, Gad Elmaleh, Aissa Maiga, and Omar Sy
Distributor: Vendetta Films
Runtime: 85 mins. Reviewed in Sep 2013
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This sub-titled French film is adapted loosely from Boris Vian’s 1947 cult novel, “Froth on the Daydream” and is a romantic drama set in Paris, France. Gondry’s version is the third film adaptation of Vian’s novel.
Colin (Romain Duris) leads a carefree life in a converted train. He is a handsome, idealistic young man, and he is rich. He does not need to work to have the life he wants. He loves the cooking of his French cook, Nicolas (Omar Sy), and is attached to his French friend, Chick (Gad Elmaleh), who tells him that he has met a girl named Alise (Aissa Maiga) to whom he is attracted.
Chick also tells Colin that he has a friend called Chloe (Audrey Tautou), and Colin falls deliriously in love with Chloe when he meets her at one of Chick’s parties. He marries her, but Chloe falls seriously ill during her honeymoon and as her condition worsens with time, the relationship between Chick and Alise starts to change its course.
The film shows a parallel between love that is blossoming between Colin and Chloe while reality presses hard upon it, and love that deteriorates between Chick and Alise, when reality does not impede it. Colin and Chloe know that they have their “whole lives to get things right”. The scene is set for a romantic movie that steps boldly from reality into fantasy. Its inventive imagery portends the inevitable in what will happen to Colin and Chloe. For example, there is a pile-up of skaters, while people with bird-like heads look on; we are shown glimpses of an ammunitions-factory in which weapons are heated by naked men; and Colin’s apartment begins to shrink as Chloe’s health deteriorates.
As the imagery accumulates, the film becomes darker and more contemplative. Its images have the combined effect of haunting the viewer with death approaching. The film begins by being a frothy piece, and develops into a movie of a very different kind. At all times, the film’s images are richly inventive. For example, a wedding procession takes place under water; complex dance moves are aided by legs that suddenly grow in length; and the couple take an aerial trip above Paris on a mechanical cloud. Gondry’s love of technology dictates the pace.
There is a piano that makes cocktails depending on how someone plays it; a chef that works wonders while the food he is preparing animates itself around him; and spider-webs grow over Colin’s apartment as Chloe’s illness gets worse. The accumulation of gadgetry becomes a challenge, as the two main leads try to find ways of injecting their romance into the middle of it. Chloe’s sickness is defined enigmatically. She has a water lily living in her lung, which makes breathing difficult.
The only cure for Chloe is for Colin to surround Chloe with fresh flowers to wither the source of her illness, and this uses up all the financial resources he has. Other themes lie beneath the imagery.
The film depicts the rise of social unrest in France, and offers us a story of love, life and death in a society that is increasingly troubled. However, there is a moral message that permeates the movie. A life-time has moments of great joy, and times of great sadness. Sadness is endurable with memory of times that are joyful and happy. The growing love between Colin and Chloe, and the ebbing love between Chick and Alise reinforce that point.
This movie is a hard one to articulate a cohesive theme that threads through all of its wonderful images. But its images are well worth-while experiencing for what they do to extend the richness of our imagination. The social overtones of this extraordinarily whimsical movie suggest it is much more than the sum of its parts.
Audrey Tautou is a delight to watch, and the imagery of the movie never fails to be involving even in its dark as well as its joyful moments. The movie is playful, melancholic and highly imaginative. Although its imagery might distract a little from the essential drama of the piece, the film is well worth seeing for the charm of its acting, the eccentricity of its visuals, and the sheer inventiveness of Gondry’s creative direction.
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