A Christmas Tale ***1/2

Director: Arnaud Desplechin
Cast: Catherine Deneuve, Jean-Paul Roussillon
Anne Consigny, Mathieu Amalric, Melvil Poupaud
Hippolyte Girardot, Emmanuelle Devos, Chiara Mastroianni
Laurent Capelluto, Emile Berling, Thomas Obled, Clément Obled

Junon Vuillard (a truly splendid Deneuve) has been diagnosed with a form of degenerative cancer, she needs a bone marrow transplant that might aid her or kill her.
Her husband Abel (Roussillon moving and warm) invites their whole family to come together for the first time in years and celebrate the holidays. But this brings trouble with the return of the prodigal son Henri (Amalric who is brilliant) who was banished years before by his older sister Elizabeth (Consigny) who's dealing with her son Paul's (Berling) suicide attempt.
There's also an uncomfortable love triangle between their youngest brother Ivan (Poupaud), his wife Sylvia (a sparkling Mastroianni) and their cousin Simon (Capelluto). Plus Henri's new girlfriend Faunia (Devos who injects the film with a delightful sort of selfaware humor) who is Jewish and refuses to participate in Christian celebrations.
With as much balls as patience, director Desplechin puts all these people under the same roof, along with their feuds, secrets, genetic troubles, illnesses and inner demons, for the space of four days with some brilliant, unexpected results.
"A Christmas Tale" could've easily turned into one of the following: the rehearsal for a reality show, one of those quirky dysfunctional family dramas that rely heavily on eccentricity or one of those sappy American dramas where forgiveness and enlightenment come to the melody of Bing Crosby.
What this film turns out to be is something quite different; an amalgam of sorts of film styles, self conscious references, acting methods, moods, colors and emotions, something that sounds chaotic but actually makes more sense than it should and feels right because it manages to represent the tension that arises whenever families come together.
Sometimes it feels as if Desplechin himself doesn't want for these people to solve their problems (which he probably never intended to do), because instead of uniting their themes, he stresses out how different they are.
Therefore Consigny's scenes, some of which involve an analyst, feel extracted from a Bergman play, Poupaud's have picaresque Truffaut strokes, Amalric's seem to be have been written by Moliére on steroids and a particular scene involving Devos and Deneuve practically screams Hitchcock.
He grabs them, splits them in unorthodox ways, puts them together like he wishes, breaks the fourth wall constantly and even has time to include flashbacks, shadow theater, a wonderful Angela Bassett reference, Charlton Heston shouting in French and an improvised play before dinner. How this odes to individuality play together beautifully like a choir is one of the many miracles in Desplechin's Christmas.

Love Songs ***1/2

Director: Christophe Honoré
Cast: Louis Garrel, Ludivine Sagnier, Clotilde Hesme
Chiara Mastroianni, Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet, Brigitte Rouan

"...and these songs that we sing, do they mean anything to the people that we're singing them to?"
"The Songs That We Sing" by Charlotte Gainsbourg

From its title sequence reminiscent of "The 400 Blows" to its odd sense of existence, without falling into self awareness, Christophe Honoré's refreshing musical "Love Songs" just exudes nouvelle vague-ness.
"I'm sick of movies alone" sighs Julie (Sagnier) to her boyfriend Ismael (Garrel) over the phone, while she waits for him outside a theater. They have been together for, what we can assume has been, a significant amount of time and have fallen into the kind of rut they try to solve by adding a third person to the relationship.
Said person comes in the shape of Alice (Hesme), Ismael's co-worker, who shares their bed and unusual sexual life.
But the film isn't about their unorthodox way of life, nor how they got there or what the social/moral implications are, it's about the way in which people deal with love nowadays, searching for new options in whatever shape they come, it deals with a youthful world view where everything seems possible.
That is until reality comes and spoils everything. The reality here comes in the unexpected death of one of them, who literally drops dead, sending the other two in opposite directions trying to get back in a game they thought they'd already won.
Using Alex Beaupain's delightful songs to craft this musical, director Honoré comes up with an invigorating way of approaching what has become a feared cinematic style.
"Is it your pretty bum, fear of loneliness?" sings Garrel to his girlfriend wondering what is it that makes him attracted to her. The directness of some of the lyrics smooths the suspension of disbelief, but Beaupain equally falls into epically romantic lines, "have you ever loved for the sheer sake of it?", that make for a curiously effective combination of harsh reality with fablesque optimism.
In his previous film, Honoré paid homage to Jean Luc Godard and here he continues his tradition with a liberating outlook on relationships straight out of "A Woman is a Woman", but unlike that film's obtuse technique with musical scenes, "Love Songs" owes its fluidity to Jacques Démy who indulged the viewer with epic song and dance moments that felt inherent to the story being told.
Godard-ian in spirit but Truffaut-esque in execution the director's biggest misstep might be in the feeling of disconnectedness perceived in the transitions from musical sequences to dialogue.
He never musters up the same emotional flow, but is that actually a bad thing or can it be argued that by making this disconnection so obvious he's in fact making a point?
When looking back at life most people will forget names, places and persons but they somehow never forget the music that accompanied them.
In the very same way the characters sing, not because they are aware of it, but as if they'd become possessed by an other worldly force.
Garrel gives his most complete performance to date, making Ismael both lovable and sort of an asshole, while the divine Sagnier seems to float over the film (both have sweet, honest singing voices).
Yet the real find is Leprince-Ringuet as Erwann, whose baby face and innocence give the film its entire sense of meaning. His character becomes infatuated with Ismael, going to the point of following him just to convince him that he is the one.
Again, sexuality becomes completely irrelevant as the camera sweeps us and the film finds an intense, but unadorned, emotional sincerity as it tries to find love amidst grief.
In the same way Erwann dives fearlessly into the the unknown with the hopes of love (even in the face of heartbreak), Honoré throws us and himself into this gorgeous film.