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I saw this film at the first ever French Film Festival that I attended. I was dubious. Who cares about French movies? If I wanted to watch french movies why didn't I just watch Marie Antoinette (this was 2006, after all). All doubts were cast aside the minute Charlotte Gainsbourg appeared on-screen, wrapped in an ochre bathrobe, hair dripping wet and yet radiant as a teenager. She wore two delicate necklaces, layered over each other, and she was funny. Her french was lyrical - melifluous, like all foreign languages seem to the untrained ear - her hair perfectly messy, her face free of makeup. The movie itself was one of those ridiculous, over the top romantic comedies that the French do so well, silly with just the right amount of quirkiness. Since then I've always liked these kind of French films (of which, of course, Amelie is the famous example, but there are so many more, like this year's Delicacy or Paris Manhattan). So much more intelligent, so much more side-splitting than their American counterparts - the butchering of Sophie Marceau's LOL by Mylee Cyrus and Demi Moore is a prime example of this. And I've always loved how French romantic comedies never seem to have typically handsome male leads. It is somewhat refreshing, and far less overbearing when you watch a film. I've got nothing against Ryan Gosling, but sometimes it's all just too much.
How fantastic is Charlotte Gainsbourg's wardrobe? Like. It really does not get better than this. This is Parisienne style in the true sense - Isabel Marant pre the Becketts and the Bobbys, Maje before Alexa Chung, A.P.C and Petit Bateau and Vanessa Bruno on their best days. The skinny jeans, the peasant blouses, the oversized brassy belts; this is the kind of stuff that you see every day on the streets of Paris. Real style, not a Hollywood, Americanised version for the cinema. Real style. And, indeed, Charlotte Gainsbourg is that kind of real Parisienne with messy hair and no makeup and a perfectly contempo-casual wardrobe of military jackets and knee high boots. In this movie she's supposed to have real style. Carole, Luis' sister who owns a boutique, remarks as such when she first meets Emma in a delicately draped off-the-shoulder top and a knee-length skirt. Throughout this movie she wears mostly multiple variations on two outfits. That one, and the skinny jean plus v-neck oversized blouse with boots. It was a fantastic urban uniform that she carried off so well.
It's not totally real. Even French movies can fall victim to that "everyone has a perfect house/wardrobe/car/life/" thing that movies tend to have nowadays. The thing is, watching this movie - and the countless other French films that line my DVD case in the years since - I've come to wonder whether life in Paris wouldn't actually be, quite simply (tout simplement, tout simplement), that perfect. Silly relationships, silly situations, silly lives, perfect wardrobe. That's all that matters, right?
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How fantastic is Charlotte Gainsbourg's wardrobe? Like. It really does not get better than this. This is Parisienne style in the true sense - Isabel Marant pre the Becketts and the Bobbys, Maje before Alexa Chung, A.P.C and Petit Bateau and Vanessa Bruno on their best days. The skinny jeans, the peasant blouses, the oversized brassy belts; this is the kind of stuff that you see every day on the streets of Paris. Real style, not a Hollywood, Americanised version for the cinema. Real style. And, indeed, Charlotte Gainsbourg is that kind of real Parisienne with messy hair and no makeup and a perfectly contempo-casual wardrobe of military jackets and knee high boots. In this movie she's supposed to have real style. Carole, Luis' sister who owns a boutique, remarks as such when she first meets Emma in a delicately draped off-the-shoulder top and a knee-length skirt. Throughout this movie she wears mostly multiple variations on two outfits. That one, and the skinny jean plus v-neck oversized blouse with boots. It was a fantastic urban uniform that she carried off so well.
It's not totally real. Even French movies can fall victim to that "everyone has a perfect house/wardrobe/car/life/" thing that movies tend to have nowadays. The thing is, watching this movie - and the countless other French films that line my DVD case in the years since - I've come to wonder whether life in Paris wouldn't actually be, quite simply (tout simplement, tout simplement), that perfect. Silly relationships, silly situations, silly lives, perfect wardrobe. That's all that matters, right?
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