Café de Flore (2011)

The first story is set in present-day Montreal and centers on a recently divorced father of two girls, Antoine Godin (Kevin Parent), who leads a successful life as a professional DJ. Despite having found true happiness in his relationship with his girlfriend Rose (Evelyne Brochu), he feels a little remorseful for having left his ex-wife Carole (Hélène Florent), for whom he still cares deeply. Antoine understands that she continues struggling to move on with her life, heartbroken. And to make the situation in which they find themselves even more difficult, their eldest daughter persistently plays their nostalgic love song with hopes of reuniting her parents.

The second story is set in Paris in 1969 and focuses on Jacqueline (Vanessa Paradis), a self-sufficient, loving single mother who becomes the embodiment of perseverance and selflessness as she promises to devote herself both physically and spiritually to her son Laurent, who has been diagnosed with Down syndrome. She spends every minute of spare time with her beloved young boy with the goal to elongate his limited life expectancy. One day, when Laurent begins to be infatuated by Véronique, a new girl in his class-- who, incidentally, also has Down syndrome-- Jacqueline is struck by an overwhelming feeling as she fears that her inseparable bond with the only person she loves will be be lost with time.

Up until the very end of the film, it seems like the only link between both stories is the music the characters listen to (the jazz album "Café de flore" appears in the second story while a certain remix is featured in the first one), but as we progress further into this mystical mystery, we learn that there is something much deeper tying together the characters and their stories of love and loss.

Knowing that "Café de flore" would be composed of intertwined stories, I was initially a little reluctant to seeing it and very worried that its structure would collapse within the first few minutes of the film. To my pleasant surprise, this modern approach to storytelling proved to be ultimately rewarding. I believe credit is due to the film editor, who is-- believe it or not-- Jean-Marc Vallée, again. It's nice to hear that he had control of almost every visual aspect of his own work of art. With Vallée's perfectly orchestrated editing, the audience is able to follow the story without ever sensing an abrupt switch between story lines. In the film's entirety, not once did I feel that some scenes were fragmented or disjointed from others. Vallée always progresses deeper into his creation by carefully and seamlessly shifting between narratives just at the right time, creating a smooth, fluid tempo. Briefly, everything flows like a river.

Fmovies: This film is simply beautiful.

It's not complicated. It is simply a movie about love. The images are beautiful and the actors are beautiful. The story line is just there to weave from one example of love to another. It (the movie) caresses many facets and types of love.

I stopped trying to understand what anything meant about 5 minute into the movie. I just went along for the ride. I found the movie touching - a good reminder of what life is all about.

I highly recommend it. It's a great way to pass a few hours in the presence of beautiful emotions and images.

This film is visually beautiful, the acting superb. However, I don't recommend it. The "mystical" connection between the two story lines absolutely does not work. The story line with Jacqueline is touching, and occupies far too little of the screen time. Vanessa Paradis is amazing, and her interactions with her son are touching and sad, as you recognize her life revolves completely around him as see struggles to raise him alone after his father leaves. On the other hand, I found the misogynistic tale of Antoine very off-putting. A narcissistic man leaves his beautiful, intelligent wife of 20 years for a vapid, tattooed, insecure younger woman with whom he appears to have no common interest other than sex. How original. Great role model he is for his teenage daughter, who hates him, by the way. Big surprise. Unfortunately, the daughter is the only female who stands up to him and calls him out for the cochon that he is. The other women in his life are just waiting with bated breath to see whether he chooses to allow them to continue making him the center of their worlds. I am really tired of this story line having seen it too many times, and I didn't enjoy this film as a result.

Café de Flore fmovies. Amazing. Amazing. Amazing. I usually dislike indie films and their lack of plot (Las Acacias) or often, even endings.

This was a real movie, about real emotions, and really imperfect individuals. Beautiful energy as added with the music, the emotions were aptly and strongly felt with its aid.

The subplot of past lives makes one wonder whether or not one believes in it, and if so how much? Just breathtaking. Even if you don't love it as much as I do, it is a worthy film worth viewing and giving an open hearted chance to. Who knows? You might be moved, you hard nosed cynicist, you :)

I scared myself when I cried with the Sigur Ros song in the film, out of blue, in the dark cinema with only 3 other strange people there.

This is a film about dream and love, and what are you supposed to do if your dream is all about the one you love, and what if you spend all your life protecting a dream that never meant to belong to you. This is the question in front of Jacqueline and Carole. After all, having a dream that connected to human beings is a dangerous thing to do.

Using two parallel story lines is no more a novelty in film making. Yet the film does not give us much information on the relation between the two very different stories—a single mother, Jacqueline, with her Down's syndrome son, Laurent, in 1960s and a couple (Carole and Antonio) facing betrayal and the sequential mental stress today. The only correlations between them are Carole's strange dreams and "Cafe de Flore"—the songs with the same name that people from two spaces and times happened to play. Two and a half hours is a long duration for an independent art film, and in most of the time, these two stories are separately told, slowly and beautifully, and I thought maybe that's it, there would be no overlap between the two stories, until Carole figured out her connection with the mother and son from the last life.

I watched Cafe de Flore by myself in a small cinema in the suburb of London. Tranquillity is all you need when encountering a beautiful film like this. Crying like a baby in the cinema, I had to sit there for a while until the film credits finished in order to give myself some time to look normal before going out. And the film is such a great comfort for some reason, it's cathartic.

The original soundtrack is another important reason to make the film so moving. Interestingly, Sigur Ros's music video svefn-g-englar featured with Down's syndrome dancers, could be the initial inspiration of Cafe de Flore?

IMHO there are two categories of movies: the ones that impress me when I see it, like Hollywood blockbusters which shock me with stunning visual effects, or action scenes, or dramas. There is another category, that don't produce much of an impression when I see it, I get even bored wondering myself why did I pay the ticket for it. But.. suddenly after a couple of hours, or days, they become alive inside me and haunt me after. "Cafe De Flore" is one of those! It doesn't have a story to tell, it is pure art. The authors plant a seed that is intended to grow inside the viewer. It doesn't try to convince you of anything, doesn't draw a conclusion in the end, just places frame after frame and leave the interpretation to you. I would rate it 8 out of 10. regards, Andrei