Bem Amadas

Catherine Deneuve and her real life daughter, Chiara Mastroianni star in the saga of their lives from the 1960's to 2001. The two are beautiful which is the point: Life is hard even when you are beautiful. The daughter doesn't feel loved. The two men in her life are Paul Schneider and Louis Garrel. Her father loves her. Her mother loves her. Somehow it is not enough. Loudvine Segnier plays the young Deneuve. The repeated refrain is: I can live without you, but I can't live without loving you.

Then it is said that loving another makes you a different person. And when that person is gone, you are still the person you became when you loved each other.

The French know more about love than other cultures. I will try to see this again, because I loved the singing. The lyrics were so simple.

I was surprised to see that most people across the internet hate this movie. I don't (and I am a recent Film grad, to qualify that). In fact, this is one of the most perfect movies I've ever seen, and one of my top 3 favorite French films. I was incredibly surprised by how long it was. A musical-y epic? But towards the second half I could actually sense how devoted Honore must've been to this movie, and why he didn't want to compromise it by condensing it. I watched this on my laptop logistics-wise, so I didn't have the same experience as someone stuck in a chair in a too-cold theater. The soundtrack? Exquisite. The cast? Perhaps could've been improved upon, but it's the familiar Honore cast and as such carries with it solid chemistry that was essential to the story. It channeled the Umbrellas of Cherbourg, with its lovely palette of colors. Yes, it has songs, and *yes* it took creative license. My imagination is vivid, so I didn't have to tax it too much to buy the story. I think the <25 demographic would prefer it more than the 30+.

I feel that people had problems with it because they were expecting a da Vinci, but this is highly Impressionist in spirit.

This film is remarkable.

Beautifully shot, full of inventions, the film is extremely refreshing as most of Honoré's work. The tone is pop and lighthearted, while addressing unconventional subjects, such as elder's sexuality.

The casting is impeccable as always with Honoré. If the duo Deneuve-Sagnier and the depiction of a female character of that generation had a taste of dejà-vu (Ozon? Todd Haynes?), Honoré managed to make it feel like unexplored territory. But that's with Vera's character that Honoré is at its best. Mastroianni is AMAZING!! You've never seen a woman in her late 30's depicted that way in a movie.

The downturn of the film are the singing parts. It really doesn't work and it's even painful to watch. Other than Jacques Demy's films, one can think of Resnais's "On connait la chanson", Ozon's "8 femmes" or Ducastel & Martineau's "Jeanne et le garçon formidable" as examples of the successful mix of serious subject matters and musical. But with Honoré, it doesn't work (with the exception of the elegant telephone scene with Duris and Preiss in "Dans Paris"). It's tempting to just recommend to skip the singing parts as the film is otherwise quite long.

Other than that, the film is a must see.

Way way way too long. The nearly three hour run-time is longer than all the parking meters in the area of the theater, so i even risked a parking ticket to see the end of this flick! Lots of actors from a previous Honore musical: "Love Songs" (which ran a respectable 100 minutes). Sagnier gets the movie off the ground and then Deneuve sinks it. Mastroianni also greatly helps toward its floundering. I suppose most blame should be heaped on either the director or producers for allowing this thing to go to distribution in its present state. There might be a decent musical in there somewhere. Ludivine Sagnier is one of the many attractive gems of European Leading Ladies of the cinema. She and Isabelle Huppert are my favorite French Actresses nowadays. It's always tricky to cross generational lines and use different actors for the same character in different stages in life. Even the most forgiving viewer might find himself at odds reconciling the tall handsome young "Jaromil" with his older version, regardless of how well and charming the part was played. If you liked "Love Songs" then you will feel at home with the Alex Beaupain score.

I rather enjoyed the first 45 minutes of "Beloved." Ludivine Sagnier, one of my favorite actresses, plays a 1960s French woman who is confused by love. I was still with the story as the years passed and Sagnier matures into Catherine Deneuve, in a nifty bit of casting. However as the story shifts to that of daughter Vera, it all becomes a bit too morose for me. Vera for some reason becomes obsessed with a man who cannot love her back. It's hard for us to see any reason for this obsession. It simply appears the young woman is eager to destroy her life.

There are very strong echoes here of the Truffaut film "The Story of Adele H." Truffaut, however, was well aware he was filming the story of a woman's descent into madness and hell. In "Beloved," director Christophe Honoré takes a similar story but shoots it in a very different light. He seems to think there is something so very romantic about desperately loving someone who cannot possibly love you back.

Honoré throws in everything but the kitchen sink here, covering topics from Aids to 9/11. But, at around 2 hours and 20 minutes, it's all too much for such a morose topic. I probably should have turned it off after those first 45 minutes.