Though The Love Songs (AKA
Les Chansons d'Amour) is not a film operetta
per se, director Christoph Honoré and composer/lyricist/vocalist Alex Beaupain use that film to pay
homage to the French movie musical as conceived by
Jacques Demy in his classic Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (1967). The Honoré film concerns a series of hopelessly romantic Parisian characters who are unable to convey their feelings to one another in everyday situations, and who thus use musical numbers as outlets - as vehicles of emotional expression. Beaupain composed the score; a number of the songs that are included appeared on one of his solo albums. The individual stories covered in the film tell age-worn tales as old as time: the loss of love, the discovery of new love, the impossibility of mutual love. The film stars:
Louis Garrel,
Ludivine Sagnier,
Chiara Mastroianni, Clotilde Hesme, Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet, Brigitte Roüan, Jean-Marie Winling and Yannick Renier. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide