One of 2008's Best Films, Love Songs, Now On DVD!

Love Songs, one of the 10 best films I saw in 2008, is out this week on DVD. A bittersweet romantic tale by one of my fave French directors, Christophe Honore (Ma Mere, Dans Paris), Love Songs stars his usual muse Louis Garrel (The Dreamers) as Ismael, in the middle of a prickly menage-a-trois with Julie (Ludivine Sagnier) and Alice (Clotilde Hesme) when tragedy intercedes. Love, loss, grief and the surprising way Ismael works through his pain is told by the actors who periodically break into song. Honore creates such an acid flashback to the 1960s new wave French movies, in this instance particularly Jacques Demy’s unconventional musicals (The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg), but it still feels new and vibrant and works thrillingly. The whole film is as wildly romantic as it is inventive.