Café de Flore (film)

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Café de Flore
A woman holding a child in her arms, and another set of arms hugging around her waist.
Film poster
Directed byJean-Marc Vallée
Written byJean-Marc Vallée
Screenplay byJean-Marc Vallée
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyPierre Cottereau
Edited byJean-Marc Vallée
Distributed byAlliance Films (Canada) TF1 Séries Films (France)[1]
Release dates
  • 12 September 2011 (2011-09-12) (TIFF)
Running time
120 minutes
CountryCanada
LanguageFrench
BudgetCAD 10,000,000 (est.)

Café de Flore is a Canadian drama film, released in 2011. Directed, written, and edited by Jean-Marc Vallée,[2][3] the film garnered 13 nominations for the 2012 Genie Awards.[4] The film's title refers not to the café on Boulevard Saint-Germain in Paris, but to a Matthew Herbert song of the same name which the film uses to represent its musical current.

Plot

The film cuts between two seemingly unrelated stories. One, set in present-day Montreal, focuses on Antoine, a successful club DJ torn between his new girlfriend Rose and his still-complicated relationship with his childhood friend and ex-wife Carole; the other, set in 1960s Paris, features Jacqueline, the fiercely protective single mother of Laurent, a child with Down syndrome who has a crush on Véronique, a friend and companion who also has Down syndrome.

The film builds toward the revelation of how the two stories are linked: after Jacqueline, Laurent, and Véronique are killed in a car accident, Carole, Antoine, and Rose are their subsequent reincarnations.

Cast

A small (last credit on screen) but important role is "la médium", played by Emmanuelle Beaugrand-Champagne. She helps Carole understand that her recurring dreams of a young mongoloid (word used in the dialogue) boy, and of a horrendous car crash, are the memories from when she was Jacqueline, going through her own emotional trauma that her love for Laurent (Carole for Antoine) was being displaced by his love for Véronique (Rose).

Production

Filming

Café de Flore was shot in Montréal and Paris, from 16 August 2010 until 19 November 2010. In Paris, a scene was filmed on the Boulevard Saint-Germain in front of the actual Café de Flore.

Soundtrack

Café de Flore's multi-genre soundtrack includes songs from

Sigur Ros, Creedence Clearwater Revival and Pink Floyd. By fusing modern electronic and avant-garde
elements with old world orchestral sounds, the music connects the two major time periods of the film.

The film borrows its title from the electronic-tinged "Café de Flore", a song written and performed by British musician Matthew Herbert in 2000. The song is used throughout the film to represent and reinforce its central themes.

Café de Flore features two

Just Like Heaven
" performed by Florent and Parent, and a cover of Herbert's "Café de Flore" performed by Paradis, Brochu and Les Petits Chanteurs du Mont Royal.

Vallée had originally planned to put Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" on the soundtrack, but lead singer Robert Plant turned down its use.

Reception

Critical response

Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 64% based on reviews from 55 critics, with an average rating of 6.4/10.[5]

In Canada, Café de Flore was generally well received by critics.

Postmedia News gives the film four out of five stars, noting Vallée's ability to use music to craft a story of unfailing love. He calls the Montréal filmmaker a "visual storyteller" who "creates montages linked by their emotional colours".[9]

While Café de Flore was generally well recognized by the Canadian film community, the film obtained mediocre reviews and low turnouts in France. The film, which attracted a promising 45 critics upon its initial theatrical début, ultimately grossed fewer than 85,000 total viewings.

Première gives the film 3.75/4 stars, praising Vallée music selection by comparing him to a "DJ who mixes different paths together to better grasp the stories which they tell".[15]

Critic

Sight & Sound critic concludes her review by stating that though the film attempts to connect two stories in different time periods, the "convoluted leaps in time and space often make the film difficult to follow, and in danger of appearing pretentious rather than sophisticated".[16] The Guardian's Mike McCahill rates the film one out of five stars, calling Vallée's film a "narcissistic", "fundamentally unpersuasive", "head-in-the-clouds" drama with a revelation that may "prove to be the most stupid love twist of the decade".[17]

American reviews were also mixed. Charles Cassady, a reviewer from Video Librarian, gives the film three out of three stars, uplifting its "bittersweet mise-en-scène, which thankfully never tips into horror/suspense or becomes carried away with f/x, instead offering a mature and wise (if a little male wish-fulfillment-tinged) take on themes of 'soulmates' and the limitations of love".[18] Variety's Boyd van Hoeij salutes the film's casting, but deems Café de Flore unoriginal, noting that "Vallée has taken what made C.R.A.Z.Y so successful, and simply tried to replicate it on a slightly larger scale. [Occasionally] similarities between the films ... are so striking it almost feels like Vallée's ripping himself off".[19]

Accolades

The film garnered the most nominations (13) at the 32nd Genie Awards:

  • Best Picture (Vallée, Poulin & Even)
  • Best Actress in a Leading Role (Paradis)
  • Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Gerrier)
  • Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Florent)
  • Best Director (Vallée)
  • Best Original Screenplay (Vallée)
  • Best Art Direction (Vermette)
  • Best Cinematography (Pierre Cottereau)
  • Best Costume Design (Magny & Youchnovski)
  • Best Overall Sound (Minondo, Caron, Fernandes & Gignac)
  • Best Sound Editing (Pinsonnault, Blanchier, Meilleur, Morin & Raymond)
  • Best Achievement in Make-up (Fattori & Marin)
  • Best Achievement in Visual Effects (Dudouet, Morou, Normandin, Pensa, Cote, Broussard, Theroux, Sansfacon, Tremblay & Chuntz)[20]

Of those nominations, the film won three Genie Awards: Best Actress (Paradis), Achievement in Make-Up (Fattori & Marin) and Achievement in Visual Effects. Café de Flore also won two Prix Iris: Best Actress (Paradis) and Cinematography and Art Direction (Cottereau).[21]

At the 12th Annual Vancouver Film Critics Circle Awards, Café de Flore won Best Canadian Film.[22] Paradis and Florent were also nominated for Best Actress in a Canadian Film and Best Supporting Actress in a Canadian Film, respectively.[23]

References

  1. ^ Café de Flore at AllMovie
  2. ISBN 978-1908215017
    .
  3. ^ "Café de Flore (2011) – Cast, crew, director and awards". Movies & TV Dept. The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2014-01-17.
  4. ^ "'Café de Flore', 'A Dangerous Method' lead Genie Awards race". Toronto Star. January 17, 2012. Archived from the original on March 19, 2012.
  5. ^ "Café de Flore". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango. Retrieved October 6, 2021.
  6. ^ Koc, Alsegul (September 12, 2011). "Emotional Fault Lines in Café de Flore". CineAction. No. 87. pp. 40–41.
  7. ^ Dixon, Guy (12 September 2011). "Café de Flore: a beautiful, intricate Canadian film". The Globe and Mail.
  8. ^ Corliss, Mary (November 9, 2012). "Café de Flore: Twin Flames in an Enlightening Film". Time.
  9. Postmedia News. Don Mills
    , Ontario.
  10. Radio-Canada
    (in French). 4 March 2012.
  11. ^ Fugère, Claude (2012). "Café de Flore de Jean-Marc Vallée se fait démolir par la critique parisienne". Le Téléjournal (in French). Toronto, Ontario.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  12. ^ Lizé, Hubert (25 January 2012). "Café de Flore: fumeux". Le Parisien (in French).
  13. ^ Attali, Danielle (22 January 2012). "Café de Flore". Le Journal du Dimanche (in French).
  14. ^ Sotinel, Thomas (24 January 2012). "'Café de Flore': métempsycose toujours". Le Monde (in French).
  15. Première. Archived from the original
    on 28 March 2018. Retrieved 27 March 2018.
  16. Sight & Sound
    . Vol. 22, no. 6. p. 58.
  17. ^ McCahill, Mike (May 10, 2012). "Film & Music: Review: Cafe de Flore". The Guardian. London, England. Retrieved March 2, 2024.
  18. ^ Cassady, Charles (2014). "Café de Flore". Video Librarian. Vol. 29, no. 3. pp. 24–25.
  19. ^ van Hoeij, Boyd (August 31, 2011). "Cafe de Flore". Variety. Retrieved March 2, 2024.
  20. ^ "Café de Flore leads Genie32 race with A Dangerous Method in hot pursuit" (PDF). genieawards.ca. 2012-01-17. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-01-31. Retrieved 2018-03-31.
  21. ^ "Jutra 2012: Résumé de la soirée et les gagnants". www.cinoche.com (in French). Retrieved 2020-07-03.
  22. ^ "12th Annual Award Winners". Vancouver Film Critics Circle. January 10, 2012.
  23. ^ "VFCC Announces 12th Annual Award Nominees". Vancouver Film Critics Circle. January 2, 2012.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Café de Flore (film).
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