Musical passion projects that do not shy away from Filmkitsch

This week two passion projects will premiere: both deep romantic, not dirty from sentimentality and rich in music. The first is L’Amour oufwhich means something like ‘crazy love’ – ouf is French street language for Fou. A Romeo and Julia story that spans for decades and traverses both the French port workers’ environment and that of organized crime.

It starts idyllic, when the anti -social school leaver Clotaire falls like a block for the impressive Jackie in the 1980s. And she for him. She comes from a private school, is lovingly raised by her father, but cannot stand people sorry for her – she has lost her mother young. While Clotaire is evolving from Kwajong to criminal, butterflies in the abdomen make way for violent emotions and mafia violence.

L’Amour ouf Was a hit in France, and partly that is understandable. The story begins tasty nostalgic, with a dance intermezzo on The Cure, the recording of mixtapes with Prince and tender sex in the dunes in the shadow of blast furnaces. The collected French acting also helps. Jackie and Clotaire as people in their twenties are played by Adèle Exarchopoulos (La Vie d’Adèle) and François Civil (d’Artagnan in the latest film adaptation of The three musketeers). Benoît Poelvoorde steals the show as a criminal Father Familias who clotaire tells how he as a teenager fell over a pharmacy on the day he lost his father: nobody would suspect him.

Gilles Lellouche started the scenario seventeen years ago, based on the novel Jackie Loves Johnser OK?but at the time the project was too ambitious and too expensive. After his hit comedy Le Grand Bain (2019) The time was ripe. In L’Amour ouf He puts everything fat and exaggerated: feelings, style, colors, dialogues and music. It entertains, also through the excellent acting, until it starts to get bored and plays your bladder – also the length of L’Amour ouf is ‘over the top’ with more than two and a half hours. It is difficult to delete in precious stories with which makers have been walking around for (too) long.

‘Country Heart Strings’

The subject of Country Heart Strings – Country and Americana music- is a long-term passion of co-scenarist Steven Gaydos, who previously written to director Ate de Jongs All Men are Mortal (1995). The film is about two young wannabe country stars, Billie and Lucky, who pretend to be a couple to participate in the reality show Americana Dream.

Everything about the show appears to be pierced card. Once selected, the two do not compete together for a price, but against each other. The organizers are not a cozy Americana set with a record label, but hate each other. And all the time there is secretly collecting information about the participants, not only to lure viewers, also because a devious documentary maker wants to reveal misconduct from organizer Ray.

This passion project also regularly tends in terms of both story – of course, Billie and Lucky really fall for each other – and in style to Kitch. For example, old Americana fragments are projected onto objects in the background. The stylistic candy store works less well here than in L’Amour ouf. That is partly because the makers chose musicians above professional actors. That pays for itself in the songs with which the film is peppered, but due to the moderate acting work, it is more important how board cardboard the dialogues, the plot and characters are.

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