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Évelyne Brochu and Kevin Parent, with Rosalie Fortier in background, in a scene from Café de Flore.

Nov 16, 2012 By Chris Tinkham Web Exclusive

Imagine working on a jigsaw puzzle for two hours without the aid of the picture that typically appears on the box cover. Then think of the disappointment when finding that, after fitting all the pieces together, you’ve been working on an indistinguishable image all along. That’s the feeling sitting through Jean-Marc Vallée’s Café de Flore, a dazzlingly cinematic but ultimately elusive French-language film that takes such great lengths to suspend its mysteries that, for its resolution to be at all satisfying, it would need to be nothing less than epic. A film falling short of epic is to be expected, but for Café de Flore to promise so much and not even come close is disheartening.

Kevin Parent stars as Antoine, a Diplo-like touring DJ based in Montreal. He’s 40 and recently divorced from his high school sweetheart, Carole (Hélène Florent). We see in flashbacks that they shared of love of goth music in the ‘80s. Present day, they have two daughters, a teen and tween. Antoine left Carole two years earlier for a younger blonde, Rose (Évelyne Brochu), and the evolution of their relationships play out in nonlinear fashion, intermittently interrupted by Antoine’s therapy sessions and tour travels. Intercut and transpiring parallel to Antoine’s story is that of Jacqueline (Vanessa Paradis), a young woman in 1960s Paris raising a son, Laurent, with Down Syndrome. The father left them after discovering of Laurent’s condition. She dotes on the boy excessively, and when he forms a clinging bond with a girl at school with Down Syndrome, mom can’t deal with her son favoring someone else over her.

Throughout, Vallée teases that the stories of these love triangles are somehow linked—strangers with Down Syndrome appear in Carole’s dreams, for instance—and the film is imbued with stylistic flourishes that make this narrative riddle endurable. The impressive music soundtrack, which includes tracks from Pink Floyd, The Cure and Sigur Ros, not only complements the film’s dynamic visual compositions and dreamy montages (photographed by Pierre Cottereau) but is also relevant to Antoine being a music lover. In one grating but comical scene, his daughters repeat the refrain from Sigur Ros’ “Svefn-g-englar” from the back seat of his car. Thankfully, the actual track comes on in due time to erase the lingering memory of their rendition. It’s not explained how Antoine’s music taste veered toward electronica, but his daughters’ preference for rock-leaning music is a sign of their allegiance to their mom and their hope that the two will reunite.

Parent is marvelously tuned in to Antoine’s mercurial personality. He’s lovingly romantic with Rose and affectionate toward his daughters, but there’s an air of entitlement about him that turns defiant and defensive when his actions are questioned, namely taking up a mistress and remarrying. He’s not a likable lead character. Paradis, on the other hand, elicits sympathy through Jacqueline’s flaws, her overprotective behavior vacillating from obsessive to manic.

The film becomes more disagreeable, however, when its representations of Down Syndrome increasingly add a nightmarish quality. While they’re relevant to the soon-to-be revealed connection between the parallel stories, it’s a shame Vallée couldn’t steer things in a different direction.

Café de Flore currently is playing in select cities. It opens today in Southern California at Laeemle Theatres in Santa Monica, Pasadena and Encino.

www.adoptfilms.net/cafe

Author rating: 5/10