Once again, I find myself awake during the wee hours… It’s just one week before my westerly exodus. I heard no less than 5 gunshots in the (not so distant) distance. And a decidedly autumnal breeze has been wafting through my bedroom all night, causing the gossamer curtains to alternately stick to the window screens and drift around my face, obstructing my view of the computer.
I found myself clicking through the time vortex that is YouTube, as I am wont to do during these occasional bouts of sleeplessness, and I stumbled across this short film/ad for YSL’s Fall 09 Men’s collection, starring none other than the darling of my post adolescent fantasies, Michael Pitt. It’s shot in black & white, features a smoky/bored French lady voice-over, and is comprised entirely of a full frame shot of Pitt’s face. It is undeniably pretentious, but dare I say… a little hot.
Naturally, this got me thinking about The Dreamers and what a beautiful, beautiful film that is. Since I insanely do not own a copy of it and it’s not available to watch instantly, I figured I’d just look up some Louis Garrel films instead. I typed his name in the search box and scrolled through the list, skipping over those lacking that glorious blue “Play Now” button. Scrolling, scrolling and hot damn! Love Songs. Play.
Now, I didn’t know much about this film beforehand other than that Ludivine Sagnier co-starred, there’s complicated love and a tragedy befalls the lovers. Basically, it’s really, really French. Imagine my surprise when about five minutes in, Louis bursts into sing-acting… the very bane of my existence. Sing-acting for Christ’s sake. This is usually a deal breaker for me (I’m looking at you Sweeney Todd and the Broadway rendition of Billy Eliot), but for some reason sing-acting doesn’t make me want to punch puppies quite as much when performed in French. I decided to stick it out and, without delving too much into the story, it was kind of amazing… and a little hot.
My favorite line? Uttered (sans musical intonation) at the very end of the film just before it abruptly fades to black… “Aimes moi moins, mais aimes moi longtemps”, which translates to, “Love me less, but love me for a long time.” I found it to be devastatingly perfect.
