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76 comments in total

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80 out of 98 people found the following comment useful :-
Love me - cap ou pas cap?, 6 June 2005

Author: ParanoidAndroid1982 from Lisbon, Portugal

This bittersweet comedy about love is in line with great recent French movies such as Amelie or L'Auberge Espagnole, But Jeux d'Enfants is not trying to copy any of the previous. In fact, it is one of the most original movies I've seen lately.

Directed in a superb way by the inventive Yann Samuell, this film can make you laugh out loud in a minute and shed some tears on the next due to the extreme complexity of the feelings the director and the actors share with you. Nothing in this film seems exaggerated; it's a fairy tale of our time with a great dose of realism.

The chemistry between Guillaume Canet and Marion Cotillard is simply perfect.

Whether you like it or not, it's difficult to be indifferent to this movie and this is one of the best compliments a director can receive.

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59 out of 66 people found the following comment useful :-
The World is Their Playground, 24 August 2004
Author: (angelicdaw@yahoo.com) from China

I love this film. It's light, dreamy, and colorful. The movie does not ask you to take it seriously, but simply to watch as Julien and Sophie play with the elements of conventional life. I'm reminded of a character from Milan Kundera's Immortality, who played with the world in the same fervor and commitment.

We see Julien and Sophie's games becoming more and more elaborate as they grow up, affecting other lives even. And when they do, you understand at most levels that they do not mean to hurt other people. They just play as the game is supposed to be played.

It is fantasy in that it lets you suspend realism for a moment, and dwell on the things we take for granted many times- laughter, romance, and childlike innocence. This movie made me smile, and I have no need to question motivations etc. It would be absurd to questions things that are meant to be left alone in their wonder.

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52 out of 65 people found the following comment useful :-
C'est Incroyable, 30 July 2005

Author: richard-walker-1 from Montreal

This may be one of the best French films I have seen in a long, long time. In many ways it reminds me of Berliner's "Ma Vie en Rose" (and not just because this film also uses Zazie's brilliant rendition of the Piaf song). It has much of the same Pierre et Giles aesthetic that made the other film so memorable and the child actors also display a similarly remarkable complexity that is so rare when they are usually depicted in film.

Very rarely does a film have the capacity to surprise me this much - either with the usually predictable storyline or when trying to understand the character's motivations etc. But this film continually had me reeling when trying to get a grip on it and, in the end, just when I thought it was a predictable love story...!! For this reason alone I found it a most remarkable film and I would strongly recommend seeing it.

This film will not appeal to lovers of mainstream American cinema - it is too intelligent in the way it challenges our usual expectations. We usually expect to finish watching a film and have no questions - to have everything wrapped up nice and neatly so we can get on with our lives.

If you do not want to suddenly find yourself asking "Pour quoi?" a week later or waking up with the haunting refrains of the unique renditions of the Piaf song in your head, then I would suggest you rent a more predictable movie.

However, if you like being alternately surprised, delighted and haunted by a unique film and wonderful soundtrack - check this one out.

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59 out of 82 people found the following comment useful :-
Loved it... but perhaps for bad reasons!, 29 May 2004
Author: Michael Carlin (TGCarlini@aol.com) from Brooklyn, USA

I totally loved the experience of this movie... and the conceit of "the game"!

BUT what I really liked IS questionable... these were perhaps the MEANEST characters I've seen in a film who WEREN'T "bad guys" in years!

That said... THAT'S what I loved! These characters were completely selfish... withholding their feelings from each other for fear of being hurt... but then taking it to another level by dragging innocent bystanders into their game (through marriages that are PART of the game)...

Without giving away too much... what I liked about watching this movie unfold is what Hollywood never allows-- sometimes people just suck!

And the movie IS stylish too!

Yay!

Michael Carlin

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26 out of 32 people found the following comment useful :-
Love Means Saying "Game", 27 August 2005

Author: aimless-46 from Kentucky

The first feature from French director Yann Samuell is an "expressionistic" allegory about love, disguised as a romantic fantasy. It is about how in our relationships we never outgrow childhood games or fully recover from the insecurities caused by deep childhood wounds. It is about how people in love constantly test each other. Each dare is a renewed demand for the other person to prove their love, no matter what the sacrifice.

"Love Me If You Dare" is a gimmick translation of "Jeux d'enfants", a better translation would be "Games of Children". But given the general confusion about this film by English speaking viewers and critics the inaccurate title is probably appropriate. Film Theory 101 would include a discussion of the two basic film extremes, realism and expressionism. Generally the closer a film comes to reproducing reality, the less room there is for the filmmaker to express his artistry. Which is not to say that realism is necessarily less manipulative than expressionism, both aim to effect their viewing audience, expressionism is just less constrained.

When you are used to a steady diet of Hollywood realism, it is difficult to switch gears and watch a film like "Jeux d'enfants" without attempting to force it into the realism mold. The temptation is to gloss over the surreal elements and to take everything you see literally. But Samuell has a background as an illustrator and designer. Note the inventive visuals that employ a multitude of cardboard cutouts and idyllic fantasy settings. This is expressionism. Note the accelerated action segments and strange transitions. This is expressionism. Note the interesting time passage montages and flashbacks.

While you sometimes see similar stuff incorporated into a realistic film, it is explained away as a dream, hallucination, or memory. Here it is a tip-off that this is a surreal allegory like Bunuel's "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie". If you avoid taking "Jeux d'enfants" too literally, stop being judgmental about the actions and motivations of its characters, and focus instead on picking up its allegorical elements you will probably understand it better and enjoy it more.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

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26 out of 35 people found the following comment useful :-
Cap ou pas cap?, 2 March 2005

Author: Vlad Rotariu (vlady_r2002@yahoo.com) from Sibiu, Romania

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

This film is an interesting combination between child-like innocence and violent cruelty, somewhat like Blur's video for Good Song, screamer-type computer pranks or Happy Tree Friends.This might make the film seem disturbing and chilling at first(I admit this is the way I felt when I first watched it and usually I'm quite difficult to shock), but I guess two or more viewings are necessary to fully understand it,once the surprising factor has worn off because the ending is known and a more critical, careful viewpoint is possible. The story starts like a childhood game-Julien and Sophie were first non-sexual buddies since they both were eight and they were already then linked by strange symbols of their friendship,like an old box which is actually more than a simple object to both of them(it will play an important part in the film,somewhat like Kane's Rosebud)and a game they both invented,starting with the question "cap/pas cap"(approximate translations: are you in or not,want to play or not,game on or not)before every unimportant and crucial decision,turning their entire lives into a game,a bet,a challenge in between doing or not doing several (mostly outrageous)things. Years go by and,like in Wuthering Heights(to which this film is considered to be a contemporary version)their relationship becomes gradually love/hate-sort of one,less because there was a real sexual or sentimental chemistry between them and more because,just like in Wuthering Heights they were close to each other(closer even more than their own parents)and kindred spirits since their childhood. But they gradually have to discover that what was permitted to them as children(though even then their were occasionally bullied by parents and teachers due to their game and other curiosities)becomes increasingly impossible for them as teens or young adults,that real life is not a game but a tough struggle for survival.They try to get together but something has changed,they don't manage to stay together foe long(a series of both objective and subjective factors are causing their separation)and while he seriously considers to flee to Afganistan and become fundamentalist Moslem(he is even,for a very short moment depicted as a sort of Bin Laden-this is one of the reasons why the film is brilliant,arty,so European,because it involves frame-stories,disrupted,alternative plots),she starts an affair with a struggling,unknown and poor football-player,whom she doesn't love. A few years pass and,in spite of their wild,strange personalities they are both involved in a bourgeois,"decent",respectable sorts of lifestyles(yes,sometimes not even the most bohemian can't escape it)-Julien,who dreamed in his childhood of becoming a tyrant,is now married,a father and has a lot of debts to pay years ahead for the house and cars bought for his growing family,Sophie on the other hand has married the football-player who is now an international star like Beckham,rich and famous,yet Sophie doesn't find the slightest satisfaction neither in her marriage nor her new wealth. Both have ended up exactly the opposite of what they once wanted to be and both of them dream(or rather desperately crave)for re-teaming. Julien's monologue as he is driving towards a(probably self-inflicted)accident is summing up his relationship with Sophie-in a crescendo that lasts several minutes,his final sentence before the crash being:better than life(relevant because it's also one of the titles of this film and it perfectly sums up their relationship-which was to both more important than the instinct of self-preservation). Since the accident had only mild consequences they decide that every great gift needs a box,a wrapping and,just as they played with famous old box in their childhood they resolve to be wrapped up together for eternity...in a box of concrete. With a last "cap/pas cap" they both accept("cap!")for a last time to conclude their game while descending into a pit soon to be filled up with concrete-it seems that French cinema usually ends a love story with both characters willingly dying together,see Jules et Jim or Mayerling. This final scene was for me the most disturbing,and probably it is so even to a viewer with macabre/dark tastes and/or least instinct of self-preservation,later on I realized that it was surrealistic,fairly impossible off screen: there are several construction-workers shown while deliberately pouring concrete on them,in real life a worker who would do that would lose his job and be charged with murder. Though at first I was unconsciously appalled(heck,damned instinct named above!),I then realized that the scene was rather symbolical than a true outcome-being also named love me if you dare,this film is a metaphor about the price and rewards of love: in love one must dare to accept every challenge,even death,to eventually find fulfillment. Daring also involves not losing the child-like fantasy beyond any reason at whatever the cost-for instance the characters in The Cement Garden,Twist-and Shout or Zappa(other beautifully deep European films about coming of age)similarly unleash disaster,but without bad intentions,rather an overreacted,yet natural unconsciousness. At a closer look,the ending(with the same old box symbolically crowning the concrete box)might even be considered a victory of unrestrained,innocently unaltered love over petty-bourgeois morality,of fantasy and imagination of the tyranny of real life-after all our definitions of what's right,of the values we're serving,of reason and morality might be wrong. This is why the film has been called poor man's Amelie due to its understated,unusual sort of optimism-especially Julien's life would have been worse than death,had he survived-both without the woman he loved and with his childhood dream shattered for good-this is the way many people are slowly dying as human tools of the consumerist world,without daring to break free. In fact this film might be paralleled also to The Royal Game(a screenplay of Stefan Zweig's brilliant short story where a chess-match becomes an issue far more important some might expect)or to Alexis Zorba or The Old Man and the Sea for its message-like:"what a splendid catastrophe" or "you can kill a man but not defeat him".

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27 out of 38 people found the following comment useful :-
Until death us do part, 30 October 2004

Author: George Parker from Orange County, CA USA

To understand "Love Me If You Dare", one must harken back to childhood when fondness translated to teasing. So it is with Julien and Sophie, the central characters of this film, who in childhood become fast friends because of a game they share (or visa versa) which involves one challenging the other to do something outrageous while passing a gayly decorated candy canister to them. Upon completion of the dare, the canisters is passed back and the dared person announces "Game!". And so it goes, back and forth, as the children grow to adolescents and then to adults with the brinksmanship and friendship becoming increasingly substantial and the ubiquitous canister the ever present reminder of their unspoken bond. Finely crafted though sometimes disjointed, this creative work is full of life and energy and passion and its ever escalating story is maddeningly captivating and unsatisfying as it waxes toward its inevitable and somewhat clumsy conclusion. A love it or hate it audience dividing flick, "Love Me..." can be appreciated on as many levels as it can be condemned. The only way you'll know if you like it is to watch it. (A-)

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30 out of 46 people found the following comment useful :-
Not fair, 12 May 2004

Author: paulo1b from Brussels

It's funny how when it comes to french movies, french people are just so harsh (i'm refering to previous comments about this movie and others)!

This one starts really (i mean really) good and, it's true, goes through worse scenes ... but the end ... well I loved it! It sure can be accused to mimic american movies (just listen to the music and the "passing-above" camera moves) but shortly after it really turns ... well ... "french". But it's not a bad thing in my opinion. Talking about the characters, You just can't help thinking "what's with them ?", why are they acting like they do ? I like to think it's because of a tradition in french cinema. Characters have to be twisted and torn apart because of their deep feelings.

In the sequence of events, it can be perceived as seemingly weird ... and I have no answer to that ... Yet I appreciated it quite much and I'm looking forward to watching the next Samuell's piece. I rated it 9 out of 10. And i can only tell: watch it!

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28 out of 43 people found the following comment useful :-
cap ou pas cap?, 11 June 2005

Author: lorre964 from Portugal

I went to the cinema today... guess what i have seen? well in fact it was a very different movie from the ones i usually see... The actors called my attention right from the beginning as they were kids. A very clear sight of bullying nowadays. The game is just so perverse but actually fantastic.. Is just what everybody wants to do. To call attention, to be different, to bet our honor just for fun. But things can loose their track, like what we see in this movie... But still, is really good to watch such tricky movie.. it makes us think about ourselves and our wishes.. Well, congratulations to the whole crew and keep on doing movies like this one... We need it!!!

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17 out of 23 people found the following comment useful :-
Game?, 5 June 2005

Author: Monica4937 from Florida

Two children start an odd game of outdoing each other with limitless dares and stunts, but as they grow into adulthood their stunts become more dangerous and life threatening. Soon enough they realize that their continuation of the game had been a desperate attempt to hide the fact that they were meant for each other. Right away this film starts off in a dream like state, giving us the sense that we're really watching a school play put on by 4th graders. The mood is very light and playful and goes along with the child like innocence of Julien and Sophie. As the two characters mature so does the directing (for lack of a better phrasing). No longer do we feel like we are in the dream of a 10 year old. Reality settles in and eventually the mood in the film becomes very dark and almost depressing. I loved everything about this movie: the plot, the actors (and the chemistry between them) but most of all the directing. I liked the way Yann changed the mood in the film to match that of the character's ages. 9/10

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