[With Canada's Top 10 screening in a few major cities in Canada this week, it is perhaps time to revisit a film we love to boost in these parts. You can find Bob Turnbull's (who considers the film the best one of 2011) TIFF review here; also, you can find Bob, Mike and My own lengthy 'conversational' post about the film here.]
In an annual New Years tradition of merriment and bonding, the patriarch of a decidedly secular family asks for God’s blessing in the coming year. It is a contradictory detail such as this – a combination the pragmatic and the spiritual – in which Café De Flore asks (in a round about way) what is probably the most difficult question put to a person, at least someone in privileged first-world society: “Are you happy?”
The latest film from Québécois wunderkind Jean Marc-Vallée (C.R.A.Z.Y.) is a film of moments – intense emotional moments – offered up in a loose, free-wheeling montage (requiring the aid of voice-over) before settling into something deeper. The film further mines two of the more interesting themes that have been slowly emerging in my world-cinema filmgoing this year: The first pertains to raising children, and how connected our choices and beliefs (and anxieties) are to how the kids eventually turn out. I have seen this tackled in a variety of 2011 films ranging from guilt (We Need to Talk About Kevin) to paranoia (Take Shelter, Kotoko) to self-reflection (Tree of Life.) The second is the relation of the universe (or spiritual) to the individuals’ state of mind (Melancholia, Another Earth, and yes, again, Tree of Life.) Taking a dual narrative approach, Café De Flore divides its attention between a pair of story-lines which are connected at first glance only by the titular coffee-house tune (which is used here in many different musical forms) but other connective images and ideas slowly emerge before climatically aligning both timelines in a way that is both daring and profoundly satisfying.
