Hearts Aflutter: 5 Classic French Romance Films

The Eyes Have It

Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain (2001), Amélie, Jean-Pierre Jeunet

We kick off our heart-rending round-up with a beguiling, cast-iron classic that gripped the hearts of cinema-goers around the world (it made a Stade de France-filling pile of cash at the box office: $173 million).

There is much to recommend Amélie. First, wallow in the entrancing performance by Audrey Tautou as the doe-eyed dreamer, whose fertile imagination carried her through an affection-starved childhood. Now, as a Montmartre waitress, Amélie is keen to right wrongs and make others happy, especially the litany of oddball customers she serves (her own romantic entanglements are another matter)!

Jeunet’s direction is endlessly inventive and the narrative more accessible than his earlier works, with jaw-droppingly inventive visual flourishes and a splendid soundtrack. Whimsical and endlessly watchable, Amélie is a film that will still have you placing two hands on your own heart in swoonsome admiration.

Friends with Benefits

L’Ami de mon Amie (1987), My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend, Eric Rohmer

Eric Rohmer, a bona fide behemoth of French cinema who sadly passed away in 2010, features in a lot of our French cinematic ‘best-of’ lists. So, naturally given that the articulation of relationship foibles features so heavily in his works, he is a shoo-in for our romance special.

However, a saccharine paean to the wonders of la vie romantique this isn’t. This ‘young love’ comedy is set in Cergy-Pontoise, a brand new town on the outskirts of Paris and, as the culmination of Rohmer’s six Comédies et Proverbes series, is no different to many other of his films, in that it is very much about a specific place or at a specific time of year. Set against this superficial, shiny, seemingly soulless backdrop and featuring Rohmer’s realist aesthetic style, this tale of two intense couples manoeuvring themselves towards a partner swap yields many casually touching moments.

“Will You Be My Wife?”

La Belle et la Bête (1946), Beauty and the Beast, Jean Cocteau

“The movie screen,” Jean Cocteau said, “is the true mirror reflecting the flesh and blood of my dreams.” Watch the writer, poet and film-maker’s celluloid masterpiece 68 years after it was made and you certainly will be rewarded by his visually brilliant depiction of fantasy and dreamscapes.

Cocteau was 60 years old, this was his debut full-length film and he had plenty of creative expertise to draw upon. The avant-garde genius cleverly surrounded himself with some master technicians, not least cinematographer Henri Alekan, who provided weird and wonderful camera trickery and would go on to shoot Roman Holiday.

This is a magically woven fairytale for grown ups, concerning a beauty who melts the heart of a feral suitor, is fairly faithful to Madame LePrince de Beaumont’s source fable and demands a viewing.

Having a Night-Mer

Jeux d’enfants (2003), Love Me If You Dare, Yann Samuell

As much a fantasy as Amélie – complete with visual tricks and animations – but with a blacker heart disguised by colour saturation, this story of childhood friends who spend the next three decades goading each other into ever more implausible and risky dares, split critics and is not everybody’s tasse de thé.

Julien (Guillaume Canet) and Sophie (Marion Cotillard) have a strange bond as the best friends and to many would seem utterly repellent with their self-serving manipulations. Yet the film makes our list because its underlying melancholy serves as an antidote to more traditional cinematic tear-jerkers. It’s an anti-romance romance, showing us that sometimes only the French dare to depict true amour fou. Love this film if you dare – because sometimes there is no happy ending.

Choc to the System

Les Émotifs Anonymes (2010), Romantic’s Anonymous, J-P Améris

Thankfully, we can return to the lighter side of love on screen with this slight, though very sweet Franco- Belgian romantic comedy, set around a chocolate factory. The ever-watchable Isabelle Carré is our heroine, Angélique, a compulsively shy chocolate-maker who leaves her company when the owner dies, out of fear that her marvellous work will become public and undo her precious anonymity.

She applies for a job at another – this time, a failing – chocolate manufacturer. The boss (Benoît Poelvoorde), who’s equally maladroit, takes her on in a sales capacity.

It’s clear to Angélique that she can rescue the faltering firm if she’s allowed to actually make its chocolate, which of course she finds a way to do. As the sales come in, so the romance between the shy pair of cocoa conjurors blossoms. A happy ending? Mais oui!

Three more to watch…

Cyrano de Bergerac (1990), Jean-Paul Rappeneau

La Vie d’Adèle (2013), Blue is the Warmest Colour, Abdellatif Kechiche

Les Enfants du Paradis (1945), Children of Paradise, Marcel Carné

From France Today magazine