À la Folie

This movie is split into 2 parts: one showing the viewpoint of Angelique (Audrey Tatou), smitten art student, and the other of Dr. Le Garec (Samuel Le Bihan). Here is analysis of part one.

Opening scene (Just realized to embed I only had to copy the YouTube embed link. Good.)

Sweet right? Tres charmant, if you will. Love, flowers, hearts, red. It's practically le jour de saint valentin. Well you're wrong. Actually, this seemingly-twitterpated girl has erotomania. A psychological condition.

But before sharing this fact, the movie presents her side of the story, which creates some viewer sympathy for her as well as making her seem charmingly quirky. A sort of manic pixie dream girl, if you will http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manic_Pixie_Dream_Girl

Why just look at her, bicycling through the streets in a scarf sling! How interesting!

Throughout the movie, her main expresion is this. Some ridiculous doe-eyes and a goofy smile.

(Spoiler alert: she did not fall).

So she is built up as cutesy if not a little bit too crazy about some guy. She also gets upset about things that a rational person in a real relationship would be upset about: he bails on your trip to Italy, he gets back together with his wife (depends on the relationship, I guess). So, while the movie is providing a sense of contrast, it still makes her sympathetic and dilutes the psychological condition aspect.

Also, she's an artist. A simple tortured soul. A bit off the beaten path. Perhaps why she seems to be wearing this outfit with the floppy pants for about half of the movie. I could write another post about this girl's wardrobe but that would only take up four pictures so....

In Ian McEwan's novel about the same condition, Enduring Love, we are offered the full grasp of this disorder and not that it's just some zany girl's crush, but an actual mental health condition. That book is (good and) sort of terrifying, but this movie, though entertaining, doesn't exactly make me feel the seriousness of the situation.