Black Sheep interviews Jean-Marc Vallée

On September 1, 2011, at 11:00 A.M., Quebecois director, Jean-Marc Vallée, the man behind the Canadian classic, C.R.A.Z.Y., completed his latest film, CAFE DE FLORE. By 5:00 P.M. that same day, he was on a flight to Venice for the world premiere. “I don’t think I have the distance yet to talk well about it,” Vallée explains when we meet at the Toronto International Film Festival, the film’s second festival stop before it’s theatrical release. “In my humble experience, it usually takes a while before I know what words to use.”

Vallee left, with Cafe de Flore lead, Kevin Parent

To be fair, CAFE DE FLORE can be difficult to describe even after you’ve seen it a couple of times. There are two stories told simultaneously that take place far apart from each other in both time and space. In 1960’s Paris, Vanessa Paradis, looking dowdy and plain, plays a mother to a child with Down's syndrome (Marin Gerrier) and in contemporary Montreal, a DJ (Kevin Parent, in a surprisingly solid acting debut) leaves his childhood sweetheart (Helene Florent) for another woman (Evelyne Brochu). “I wanted to make a love story but I wanted the film to have something else too,” Vallée attempts to explain. “I just wasn’t sure what that something else was. It’s not easy to describe but I think the ride is great.”

Vallee shooting with Vanessa Paradis

While I flat out refuse to divulge what exactly the connection is between these vastly different plots, I will say that a simple song connects them on screen and that song also served as the filmmaker’s inspiration for the entire film. The name of that song? Why, “Café de flore”, of course. When he first heard the Doctor Rockit song, Vallée thought, “It’s so epic. I’m going to make a film with this track.” And so the movie is built around this song as well as a general appreciation for music itself. This aspect of the film is the director’s most autobiographical. “Music makes me feel so good, makes me feel alive, makes me dream, makes me want to make movies,” Vallée asserts right before he starts humming the catchy accordion hook from the film’s title track to me.

Vallee taking a coffee break at the Cafe de Flore

Whether you can place your finger on it or not, there is no denying that Vallée’s CAFE DE FLORE most certainly has a pulse. All you need to do is sink into that beat and Vallée will be sure to get move you.

This article was originally published in Hour Community.
Click here for the CAFE DE FLORE Black Sheep review.

readmore »»  

TIFF Review: CAFE DE FLORE

Written and Directed by Jean-Marc Vallée

Starring Vanessa Paradis, Kevin Parent, Helene Florent and Evelyne Brochu

When it comes to love, sometimes it feels as if there are greater forces at work and that we have no control over who we’re drawn to or how deeply we can feel. For some, a love as untamable as this is often considered to be destiny, as if it were written in the stars long before we were ever born. This sense of romance intertwined with fate runs rampant if Quebec filmmaker, Jean-Marc Vallée’s latest feature, CAFE DE FLORE, a love story that needs more than one lifetime in order to work itself out.

With CAFE DE FLORE, Vallée finds a voice as a director he seemed to have lost in his last outing, THE YOUNG VICTORIA. While the period piece was certainly beautiful and had its moments, it played out as, well, already played out. None of the urgency or energy Vallée created with his previous feature and biggest hit, C.R.A.Z.Y., was anywhere to be found. Perhaps it was a language thing because in returning to French language filmmaking again, Vallée is alive in all the choices he makes. And he would need to be on top of every moment in order to make this complex tale come off right. Vallée cuts back and forth between a present day Montreal romance involving a husband (Kevin Parent) who leaves the woman he’s been with since he was a teenager (Helene Florent) for another (Evelyne Brochu) and a complicated relationship between a mother (Vanessa Paradis) and her mentally challenged son (Marin Gerrier) taking place 50 years earlier in Paris.

Whether you enjoy CAFE DE FLORE or not will depend on whether you buy into the connection between these two plots. Vallée tells them both with great style; at times, the editing unspools like a record being mixed and scratched by a DJ, surely done to compliment the main character’s career as one. In fact, a general connection to music is a theme that runs throughout and ties characters together when nothing else is working.   Love itself, and the relationships that spring from it, is hard enough to figure out on its own and Vallée infuses this journey towards understanding into his storytelling. To his credit, Vallée inspires a fair amount of curiosity but the anticipation he builds throughout the film ends up being slightly more satisfying than the destination.

readmore »»  

Best of Black Sheep: THE YOUNG VICTORIA

Written by Julian Fellowes
Directed by Jean-Marc Vallee
Starring Emily Blunt, Ruper Friend, Paul Bettany and Miranda Richardson


Period pieces about royalty can often play out like chess games. The board is set as it always is with elaborately costumed pieces and these pieces are moved one by one into battle. Each piece moves in a specific fashion that is dictated by the rules of the game and cannot deviate from that plan. Experienced players know how to make this quiet game exciting while others move the pieces in predictable fashions toward an end that cannot come sooner. Sadly, Jean-Marc Vallee’s The Young Victoria is so conventional that he even has his young queen, played by Emily Blunt, playing an uneventful game of chess at one point. I swear, I thought up the metaphor before that though.


After delivering an incredible debut, C.R.A.Z.Y., in 2005, Vallee caught the attention of the international film scene. How else could he snag talent like Blunt or more importantly, executive producers like Martin Scorsese or Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York? What he put together though never rises above the level of functional. Victoria is a naïve but determined monarch. Naturally, every one around her, with either political or royal ties, wants to take advantage of her lack of experience. Victoria must reach into the crowd of hands constantly grabbing at her to take the one that she can trust. She can’t seem to figure out which one that is but it was pretty obvious from where I was sitting.


Blunt, who actually skips here and there to remind us that she really is a very young queen, does what she can with the part but to her detriment, screenwriter, Julian Fellowes, gives her very little to develop. Dress her up as fancy as you like, we’ve all seen this before and The Young Victoria becomes a reminder that Vallee is pretty young himself when it comes to directing.

readmore »»  

Black Sheep TIFF Review: THE YOUNG VICTORIA

Period pieces about royalty can often play out like chess games. The board is set as it always is with elaborately costumed pieces and these pieces are moved one by one into battle. Each piece moves in a specific fashion that is dictated by the rules of the game and cannot deviate from that plan. Experienced players know how to make this quiet game exciting while others move the pieces in predictable fashions toward an end that cannot come sooner. Sadly, Jean-Marc Vallee’s The Young Victoria is so conventional that he even has his young queen, played by Emily Blunt, playing an uneventful game of chess at one point. I swear, I thought up the metaphor before that though.


After delivering an incredible debut, C.R.A.Z.Y., in 2005, Vallee caught the attention of the international film scene. How else could he snag talent like Blunt or more importantly, executive producers like Martin Scorsese or Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York? What he put together though never rises above the level of functional. Victoria is a naïve but determined monarch. Naturally, every one around her, with either political or royal ties, wants to take advantage of her lack of experience. Victoria must reach into the crowd of hands constantly grabbing at her to take the one that she can trust. She can’t seem to figure out which one that is but it was pretty obvious from where I was sitting.


Blunt, who actually skips here and there to remind us that she really is a very young queen, does what she can with the part but to her detriment, screenwriter, Julian Fellowes, gives her very little to develop. Dress her up as fancy as you like, we’ve all seen this before and The Young Victoria becomes a reminder that Vallee is pretty young himself when it comes to directing.

readmore »»