Officially selected for the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, Christophe Honoré’s homage to Jacques Demy’s 1964 Les Parapluies de Cherbourg pays tribute to its musical form as well as its three-part structure, employing the very same chapter headings – Departure, Absence and Return. While these titles betray the melancholic aspect of this ménage-à-trois tale of love and loss, Alex Beaupain’s score, sung with natural flair by actors Ludivine Sagnier, Chiara Mastroianni and Louis Garrel (from Bertolucci’s threesome saga The Dreamers), adds a lighter tone to a film which seems to draw upon the Nouvelle Vague in more ways than one.
100 minutes, Belgium, 2007, Colour, French with English subtitles