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He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not (2003)
One of the first scenes of Laetitia Colombani's film He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not takes place in an art class. The students form a circle around a male model and begin to sketch. The camera to pans around the circle, showing each student's work in relation to the model and how each sketch differs. Colombani utilizes this as visual cue to the central theme of the narrative: perception. Not only does the film deal with perception but how many interpretations can be taken from one event and what consequences such scenarios can yield.
However, one of the students, a promising young artist named Angelique (played by the incredibly cute Audrey Tautou from Amelie), does not sketch the model. Instead, she sketches the object of her affection, a cardiologist named Loic (Samuel Le Bihan). She showers him with her artistic creations and never ending devotion. However, he is married and his wife is pregnant, thus keeping him from leaving her. Angelique's friends, David and Heloise, watch as she is tormented by her un-returned love for Loic. The audience watches, through her eyes, as the infatuation becomes unhealthy and becomes the motivation for suicide.
Then we rewind...
and watch the first half of the film through Loic's perspective. We get a glimpse into his home life, his marriage, and his profession. Moreover, we are given his interpretation on the events that transpired through out the first half of the film. Loic turns out to hold a more faithful perspective to the true events that we saw skewed through the prism of Angelique's narration. The pleasing result leaves the audience with a feeling of uncertainty and curiosity as they piece together the puzzle left by both narratives.
Many have been extremely skeptical of French actress Tautou's foiling of her role in Amelie, in which she played a hopelessly cute romantic, by portraying an obsessed and rejected woman. However, she succeeds perfectly and, while she maintains her ability at playing "cute", spreads her acting wings by drastically changing her star persona. Tautou aside, the other actors and actresses also provide the film with solid performances. Le Bihan proves to be the perfect blend of antagonist/protagonist to Tautou when his half of the story is told.
French director and co-writer Colombani seems to have constructed both a smart and darkly witty romantic thriller. One of the keys to the film's success, performances aside, is not allowing the film to wallow in either genre too long and thus changing the audience's expectations. It is not Amelie nor is it Fatal Attraction, rather an mix of both in perfect equilibrium.
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