Frivolity at NYU

Alright, let’s get this out of the way first:

Take a moment to stare (if you will) before reading on.

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While I would love to go on and on about my newfound discovery up there, that’s honestly not the point of this blog in the first place. Then again, the question I should be asking myself at this point in time is: what IS the point of this blog?

Fortunately, I’ve come to a conclusion to this predicament. As I mentioned before, while I would love to babble on and on about my life/good looking men/school for paragraphs and paragraphs (see last entry), I actually want people to read what I write….and that’s obviously not the best way to go about doing it. Therefore, I’ve decided to divide each entry into semi-organized sections.

Since I watch such a disgusting amount of movies/read insane amounts of books/listen to all sorts of weird music, I should probably have an outlet to write about them in, and what better way to do it than ranting and raving about them to whoever decides to actually read this. Of course I’ll also put a smattering of whatever the hell is happing outside of my DVD pile/iPod/books, but I’ll attempt to balance out the two so they don’t overpower each other.

So, on that note, stick around to read about whatever media I may be subjecting myself to or my actual life in general. It’s not particularly exciting, but I’ll attempt to make it so to the best of my ability.

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I’ve spent a large amount of time this last week preparing for my graduation party, which is happening this Saturday. I’m not the biggest fan of large parties as I’m not exactly a social butterfly to any extent of the term, but I figure since it may be the last time I will see some people from my high school that it would be nice to have a pretty decent sized goodbye bash. I invited about thirty or so people, and hopefully most of them will show up. We also got food catered too, which is a big deal. Now I just have to figure out how to keep everyone entertained for several hours, which is proving to be a bigger hassle than first expected. If anyone has any suggestions, please leave them!

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At this point in the blog entry you must be thinking to yourself: Whatever happened to that lovely Frenchman at the top of the page? Won’t we be revisiting him? Where did he go? YOU CAN’T KEEP HIM FROM ME.

Et. all.

So, here we go.

I recently discovered Christophe Honore when I was paging through the IFC Center webpage and a poster for a film called Les Chansons d’Amour popped up. I was immediately curious because I’ll watch practically anything that’s French, so I quickly went onto YouTube and watched the trailer. I was taken instantly by the trailer’s promise of catchy songs and a tale of twenty-something Parisians (especially the lovely Louis Garrel) and their love lives. I eat this shit up constantly. I saw that it was being released into the IFC Center in the Village two weeks later and I waited around anxiously for it to be released down here in the cesspool that is New Jersey. Obviously, that day never came.

Suddenly, however, it appeared on Netflix without any prior warning. I, of course, immediately snatched it up and popped it into my DVD player almost as soon as it arrived in my mailbox. My expectations were met and exceeded. The film follows three young Parisians who are in an unconventional threesome relationship. Ismael (Louis Garrel) works with Alice (Clotilde Hesme) at a popular magazine. Both are in love with Julie (Ludivine Sagnier), who completes the threesome paring. Unfortunately, due to various events, the threesome is split up. Telling you anymore would be risking delving into spoilers.

This entire tale is infused with all sorts of strangely infectious pop tunes that counteract the film’s dismal tone. A large portion of the film takes place in the evening or in overcast daylight, but the film’s songs shed light into the film’s dimly lit Parisian streets and shadowy apartments. All of the main players have great singing voices, and the songs don’t feel odd or out of place at all. The film could definitely be pinned as a homage to the famous French musical Les Parapluies de Cherbourg due to its similar themes of young love and tragedy. One cannot deny, however, that this film is also a definite homage to the French New Wave as well. While it keeps the occasionally headache inducing jump cuts to a minimum and we don’t see any Jules et Jim style love story here, the film embodies an unconventional style in execution in terms of story and filming that is distinctly New Wave nevertheless. I could have easily seen Godard or any of the other New Wave directors doing something like this back in the day.

The film is not without it’s faults, which mainly come in characterization. The film’s odd trio’s relationship is established fully, but we are not provided much of a backstory or any extra details whatsoever. We feel bad for them, but if we know that if we knew more about them our feelings towards their problems would be amplified so much more. Les Chansons d’Amour rises above this fault, however, and delivers the goods. The film is just so damn infectious that you can’t help but embrace its faults and love it anyways.

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So much for having a solid real life bullshit: movie bullshit ratio.

On that note, I’m off to go shopping for clothes for next year. Expect a fashion update in the near future.