“Love, Actually”: Cross-Cultural Interpretations of Love in “Paris, Je T’aime”, “Amélie”, and “Love Me If You Dare”
Love. This one meager word rears unconditional joy for some and devastating consequences for others. A person’s interpretations of love and what love means to him or her is also affected by the background in which the person was raised and the culture of the person. Three films we have seen over the course of the semester, “Paris, Je T’aime”, “Amélie” and “Love Me If You Dare” (Jeux d’enfants) examine different characters’ struggles with this complex, intense and confusing emotion and how it is interpreted in the face of cultural differences. According to the article “Love-Love Across Cultures” supports this fact, stating that “love is construed and constructed within context of culture and country.” (Hatfield & Rapson, 2).
“Paris, Je T’aime”, the 2006 multi-directed, fictional romantic drama set in Paris, presents to its spectator 21 different short films that concentrate on love and loving in Paris, the “City of Lights” and the city of love. The several stories of love’s triumph and tragedy of the characters stems from their backgrounds and the cultures from which they come. Some short films, for example, “Place des Fêtes”, present social and cultural commentaries which portray stronger messages than meet the eye. “Place des Fetes” from director Oliver Schmitz centers around a Nigerian man who believes he has fallen in love with a woman he sees in a parking deck. As he lies on the ground of the town square, bleeding from a stab wound to the thigh, something he grossly underestimates to be a mosquito sting, a young female paramedic comes to his rescue, and a woman he recognizes as the woman he met that day in a parking deck. She comes to his side and begins to treat his injury, just as she would for any other patient, but fails to recognize him. When the young man talks to her, he asks her if he can massage her feet and she wants to know why. Her reasons are valid: Why would he want to massage her feet and why would he be thinking of that while he is oozing blood from his stab wound? He responds by saying that she has been “running through his dreams all night.” Here, Oliver Schmitz inserts a social commentary about the dating styles of different cultures. Sometimes, men of American cultures, and possibly other cultures as well, will often try to find women for companionship by saying corny lines such as “Baby, you must be tired because you’ve been running through my mind all day/night.” Finding girlfriends in this way presents a stereotype of the often younger, American male. Along with cultural stereotype, this short film blends well with the others of “Paris, Je T’aime” because soon, the man dies from his injury and the woman did not realize the love she had for the man until he was gone and she realized how precious time was. The other films of “Paris, Je T’aime” represent values of love based on different backgrounds. The article mentions several types of love seen in various cultures and one of these is casual love and Place des Fêtes represents this classification because it notes how casually the young man feels about love. The overall mood of “Paris, Je T’aime” is compelling and emotionally charged, an opinion that trolliente2002 shares in her online post of the film on IMDb.com.
“Le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain”, or “Amélie” directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet in 2001 and set in France and Germany, recounts the fictional tale of a French waitress who sets out to touch the lives of strangers by performing good deeds. Many film critics proclaim it to be the “feel-good film of the year” for this reason and Steven D. Greydanus applauds its “breezy, stylized storytelling”. Though Amélie succeeds in winning the affections of those who have benefited from her altruism, it is not until the end of the film that we see Amélie win the affection of a significant other, a childhood friend, Nino. The reason behind this is explained most obviously in the beginning of the film when the narrator speaks about her troubled childhood. Amélie grew up in a bizarre family, one with a mother who constantly yelled at her and one with a father, who is a doctor and who hardly acknowledged her existence. One of the beginning scenes of the film shows her father listening to her heartbeat and little Amélie is so stricken by this small gesture of attention and love that her heart skips a beat and her father misdiagnoses her with a bad heart. In my opinion, this lack of attention, affection and love from her father explains her long disinterest in seeking a romantic partner. This film falls under the classification of “devoted love” because Amélie radiates a devoted love of her fellow man because she tries to help different characters through the plot and finally devotes love to love itself at the conclusion when she finds Nino. Hatfield and Rapson write that Americans are “more endorsing of secure attachment” (1) and this statement attaches a cultural context to the film because this secure attachment was something that Amélie had always longed for, yet was something she didn’t find until she found Nino. Because she never had this secure attachment to anyone, Amélie expressed devoted love in her altruistic ways.
Yann Samuell’s 2003 romantic and dramatic comedy “Love Me If You Dare” is set in France and Belgium and its plot focuses on young Julien and Sophie, childhood friends who forever engage in child’s play which always involves dares and trouble. As they get older, the dares become more dangerous and bear more consequence. Each time Julien dares Sophie to do something, he says “Game or not?” and she dares him to do something and asks the same question. Soon after the game of dares becomes a game of love when, at dinner one night, Julien dares Sophie to become engaged to him and presents her with a ring, which later on, he hurtfully gives to his real fiancée, another woman and the spectator soon realizes that this dare goes over the edge and bares the most consequence. At Julien’s wedding to the other woman, Sophie publicly objects to the wedding and Julien then realizes that the game of dares he had been playing with her all their lives had turned into the game of love and he falls enamored with her instantly. “Love Me If You Dare” falls under the classification of “casual love”, “passionate love” and “obsessive love”, all types which are mentioned in the article (1). Julien and Sophie casually share a love for each other when they are younger as they exchange flirty glances and even a kiss in one scene. They obsessively share a love of dares and their casual love eventually turns passionate as they realize that they loved each other and belonged together. The end of “Love-Love Across Cultures” states the idea that “Romantic passion is a complex, multifaceted emotional phenomenon that is a byproduct of an interplay between biology, self and society.” (2). Julien and Sophie’s love was an emotion that contained multifacets because it was often expressed in a casual kiss, dare and glance. Their societies had made them react as they did to one another and the passionate love that ignited in the film’s conclusion was sparked thanks to this complexity of the multifaceted emotion that love is.
Love is a complex and multifaceted emotion that can be expressed in many ways by different people depending on the surrounding society and cultural background of the person. Though it bears many multicultural interpretations, love is an intense, confusing and complex emotion that is unicultural because everyone no matter what cultural background feels, needs, and deserves love. Love is an emotion that sometimes causes pain and confusion but always causes happiness. “Paris, Je T’aime”, “Amélie” and “Love Me If You Dare” all reflect the tight interweavings of love and culture and its effect on different lives.
Bibliography
Arendt, Paul "Paris, Je T'aime" Online posting. 28 June 2007. Rotten Tomatoes 28 June 2007 <http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2007/06/25/paris_je_taime_2007_review.shtml>
Gieti, Christoph "It's my favorite movie of all time…" Online posting. 3 Dec 2002. IMDb: The Internet Movie Database. 21 May 2009 <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0211915/>
Hatfield, Elaine and Rapson, R.L. “Love-Love Across Cultures” 26 May 2009. Jrank.org. http://family.jrank.org/pages/1086/Love-Love-Across-Cultures.html
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