All you need is love

Sometimes you just want to use cinema as a form of escapism rather than a provocative reflection of the world around you. As the world watches, gobsmacked and closing our eyes at the insanity of what month two of the second Trump presidency has in store, it may not be the best time to look away.

Perhaps for a brief moment we can turn to the cold comforts of the greeting card, corporate holiday that is the reason February is schmaltzily dubbed “the month of love”, and appreciate some off-beat romance from cinema’s extensive archive of love stories to take our minds off ... well, just about everything.

These three films all explore the many ups and downs of some unusual romances and may serve as a reminder that perhaps the hippy idealism of The Beatles was true that sometimes, Love is all you need.

THE ARTHOUSE ESSENTIAL:

Like Water for Chocolate — Rent or buy from Apple TV+

Before it became the source material for a little seen HBO Max series last year, Mexican author Laura Esquivel’s blockbusting 1990s book club best-seller proved fertile ground for this 1992 film directed by Esquivel’s husband, Alfonso Arau.

The title comes from a Mexican expression that arises out of the method used in that country to make hot chocolate — water is boiled and chocolate is added to it — and so if you’re lusting after someone, you’re, “like water for chocolate”.

The water and chocolate at the heart of the story are passionate but doomed lovers Tita (Lumi Cavazos) and Pedro (Marco Leonardi) whose love in a Mexican town in the early 20th century is forbidden by Tita’s mother Mama Elena (Regina Torné). Looking to ensure that he can stay close to his beloved, Pedro marries Tita’s sister Rosaura.

Tita’s inner world and thoughts about her love are all expressed in the scrumptious meals she cooks in her kitchen and Aura’s film makes much of the sensual links between sex and food in its lush visualisation of the magical realist elements of Esquivel’s novel.

The overall effect, like all the best love stories, contains a few heaped tablespoons of burning passion, several teaspoons of tears, and a bittersweet sprinkling of nostalgic wish fulfilment that serves as a solidly dramatically engaging romance and a better than average slice of food porn.

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THE STONE COLD CLASSIC

Paris Blues — YouTube

The late, great Sidney Poitier teamed up with friends and fellow Civil Rights activists, married actor-couple,  Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward for this classic 1960s slice of Francophilia.

Its posters promised that director Martin Ritt’s drama, adapted from the novel by Harold Flender, would offer audiences, “a love spectacular so personally exciting, you feel it’s happening to you”. While it may not live up to that promise, there’s plenty of moody atmosphere, dedicated performances and visual tributes to Paris to make it an affair to remember.

Newman and Poitier play jazz musicians Ram and Eddie who find in the less prejudiced and free-minded city of love, a place where they can expand their art and escape from the racism of home. When they meet and fall in love with a pair of American tourists — Lillian (Woodward) and Connie (Diahann Carroll) the jazz-cat-besties are faced with a difficult choice — pursue their artistic integrity or fully devote themselves to the pleasures and potentially rocky future that love promises.

Scored by jazz legend and one of the Parisian jazz scene’s favourite sons, Duke Ellington, it’s a film in which the music, the city and its charms play such an important part that these elements are characters all on their own.

It may, with the benefit of hindsight, offer a square vision of jazz and jazzmen; it’s racial themes might be a little too clean cut, but the emotions that the characters face are visceral and real and still as relatable as they ever were.

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THE DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH:

Bones and All — Rent or buy from Apple TV+

Timothée Chalamet reunited with Call Me By Your Name director Luca Guadagnino for this offbeat 2022 romance-cum-cannibal-cum-lovers-on-the-run drama based on a novel by Camille DeAngelis.

Taylor Russell plays Maren, a withdrawn 1980s teenager with a dark secret that her father (André Holland) has worked hard to keep from the world and under control. That’s because Maren has inherited a need for human flesh from her long-lost mother and so things at home can get a bit gory, to say the least.

When Maren’s father, unable to keep living in subterfuge, packs up and leaves, she’s left to fend for herself. While on the road, she meets the quietly vulnerable enigmatic Lee (Chalamet), a drifter with a beaten-up pickup truck and the same dietary habits.

Together, the pair of flesh-crossed lovers set out on a magnificently atmospheric middle-American road trip in search of Maren’s mother and destined to encounter some unsettling characters and bloody situations along the way.

Hypnotically photographed by Arseni Khachaturan, eerily scored by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross and compellingly acted by its young leads, it’s an emotionally engaging tale of young love, new adventures and psychological uncertainty. As long as you can stand the cannibalism, the film holds together as a superior and memorable horror romance.

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