The Art of Love (2011)

Pretty Good

Highly Overrated But Still Good

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

I was shocked with the "crap" review here. I wish you guys learned French and read a bit about this film on allocine.fr for example. It's not a rip-off from Woody Allen, the director admits that he loves Woody Allen, Eric Rohmer et al. And yes, "L'art d'aimer" was influenced by those masters. Be warned, if you prefer r'n'b over Mozart and Schubert you will have hard time watching this. And maybe that guy is right, the director doesn't know "the life". Because that Frenchie is not from Pittsburgh after all. The film is based on Emmanuel Mouret personal notes about love and life, each story is like a visual illustration to another thought. So just relax and watch, it's all about love, nothing else.

This filmmaker should have his license to create films revoked until he's actually lived some life, as opposed to regurgitating tone and moments from Woody Allen, Rohmer and Truffaut. But without their wit and intelligence. I just saw this dreadful waste of time at COLCOA in Los Angeles. I've never wanted to shoot an off-screen narrator in the larynx before, but the vapid, pointless words coming at the audience to tie the random bits together is painful to listen to. And the incessant piano music from Mozart and Chopin to give the movie some class, or provide an ironic counterpoint counts as some kind of elder master musical abuse. All of the talented actors are utterly wasted as they serve the one-dimensional puppetry manipulated by the writer/director to fulfill his desperate attempt to be humorous. This film is the problem with film-school geeks who've been unjustly praised for their early short work, but have NO idea how human beings actually behave.

I saw the German version in a sneak preview tonight and honestly wasn't sure it wasn't a porno for about 10 minutes. The dialogs are extremely stupid and poorly dubbed (both sync and choice of voices). I also couldn't quite tell whether it was supposed to be a comedy or if the makers actually tried to make a love flick, which is pretty sad. I read on here that it was in fact supposed to be a comedy, but I still don't really see it. Sure, everyone in the theater was laughing so hard it hurt at some points, but only because the movie seemed so desperate. Hopefully, this was all the works of some really bad dubbing company and the original meaning and witty jokes of an originally brilliant movie just got lost in translation - but somehow I doubt that.

Since 1998 Emmanuel Mouret has written, directed, and acted in one short and seven full-length feature films which have gradually improved although from the first his standard was high. His films are perhaps best described as the kind Eric Rohmer would have made had be been prepared to accept that audiences on the whole prefer to be entertained rather than watch paint drying. Out of the seven full length films Frederic Bel has appeared in four and Ariane Ascaride in two, he has also been able to attract actresses like Virginie Ledoyen, Judith Godriche, Marie Gillain and Julie Depardieu and the current film also boasts the presence of Francois Cluzet. The Art Of Love is little more than a series of vignettes in which some of the couples really do meet others and some just miss; it is referential in that it takes something from La Ronde and - in the episode featuring Mouret himself - O'Henry's The Gift Of The Magi. Throughout it has the lightness of a soufflé' and the gravitas of bouillabaisse. Catch it if you can.