Casablanca / Love for freedom
"The world is falling apart and we fall in love" and "we'll always have Paris" are two of the most recognized phrases from one of the best films of all time. Casablanca (1942) is an explicit declaration of absolute love for freedom (and how much that hurts!). An open war against selfishness and imposition. Because sometimes there is no greater gesture of love than a goodbye, renunciation, letting go of the person we love so that they can achieve the happiness that one cannot, knows how, or wants to offer them. "Go with him, Ilsa," Rick demands.
- When? It should be prescribed at least once a month for the rest of their lives. Perhaps it is not as therapeutic (which it also is) as it is pedagogical: values, principles, dignity, courage...
- With whom? Alone or accompanied, they will enjoy it equally. No being on this planet has yet been found who is not passionate about the film directed by Michael Curtiz (and if you find one, be suspicious and warn the authorities of good taste). Whether it's because of the wartime context or because Humphrey Bogart emanates testosterone even when he gets sappy, it's the love film that even the least romantic tolerate perfectly.
- Soundtrack As times goes by. It's addictive, so don't be scared if you find yourself paraphrasing "Play it again, Sam."
Besides predicting Barack Obama's arrival at the White House 40 years earlier, it raises the prejudices, reticence, and moral dilemmas faced by a liberal Democrat when his white daughter announces she is going to marry a black doctor. If the cinematic and romantic couple of Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracey is already enough to fall in love with any work they participate in, the intelligent and always relevant script of this comedy to demolish racial taboos makes us forever love Stanley Kramer's Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967). Tracey's final intervention is to be reproduced in its entirety, but I highlight these other two quotes from the film: "The thing is, you consider yourself a man of color and I consider myself a man" and "It's not just that our difference in color doesn't matter to him, it's as if he believes there is no difference at all."
- When? When you don't dare to jump a barrier just because of what people will say.
- With whom? Better alone to savor the dialogues.
The Danish Girl (2015) narrates through visual poetry the true story of the artist Lili Elbe (1882-1931), the first man (Einar Wegener) to undergo a sex change operation, and his wife Gerda, also a painter, who supported him and stayed by his side throughout his life. "This film is the portrait of a marriage that experiences a profound change with love as its guide," explained its director Tom Hooper. "I love you because you are the only person who has understood me, who has made me possible," Lili declares to Gerda.
- When? When we doubt whether it is worth fighting to be oneself.
- With whom? Accompanied by someone with great sensitivity to respect the silence after the screening and give rise to a very long conversation.
"We must lose the people we love, how else would we know how important they are to us?" The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) is born from a short story written in the 1920s by F. Scott Fitzgerald, who, in turn, was inspired by a quote from Mark Twain: "Life would be infinitely happier if we could be born at 80 years old and gradually approach 18." However, as the film demonstrates, Twain's vital proposal would be equally or more painful. The ageless love story between Benjamin and Daisy is perhaps the best part of this extraordinary fable. Cate Blanchett plays the woman who has to come to terms with the idea of aging while the person she loves travels an inverse path.
- When? When you're not in a hurry. It's a three-hour movie.
- With whom? It's enjoyed just as much alone as in company.
Philippe, a wealthy aristocrat who has become quadriplegic, hires Driss as an assistant, a young man from a public housing neighborhood who has recently been released from prison. Their worlds collide and thanks to the chaos that living together generates, an unexpected and crazy friendship emerges.
- When? Intouchables (2012) is ideal when you need a big shot of positive energy.
- With whom? It is a film that excites adults and children (from 10 years old) alike.
- Soundtrack Allow yourself the pleasure of having Vivaldi and Earth Wind and Fire coexist
Despite the visual impact it had in 1990, the argument is simple and always current: to be moved, empathize, and feel attracted to the different, excluded, or marginalized. Winona Ryder gave up being Mary Corleone in The Godfather III after reading the script for Edward Scissorhands; and whoever has seen Tim Burton's film will understand why. Johnny Depp only utters 159 words; it is his gaze and sharp caresses that beg for love.
- When? One of those stories you don't revisit for decades but that makes you feel like when you first discovered it.
- With whom? Ideal for watching with the little ones at home (from 8 years old). Burton's message resonates: you shouldn't fear someone for being different; you should only fear the monsters who look just like us but harbor no feelings.
- Soundtrack Ice Dance
Although the most commercial option would have been to include Pretty Woman, we left Beverly Hills and stayed in Paris. In Irma la Dulce (1963), master Billy Wilder treats with his fine humor and tenderness the story of a gendarme who falls madly in love with one of the prostitutes he arrests. "In this world we live in, love is illegal, but hate is not." Amen.
- When? Like any of Wilder's works, it's worth watching his films as many times as one lives.
- With whom? Alone. It's magical to see a smile appear on your face listening to the dialogues.
Desire and infatuation are ephemeral feelings. What remains after that? Perhaps nothing remarkable, but perhaps all the best. Michael Haneke seeks in old age the capitalized meaning of the verb to love.
- When? When you are prepared to face reality. Don't be scared: it's sad, but not depressing.
- Who to watch it with? With someone you love without nuances.
An angel gives up being one to experience what it's like to fall in love. If you've seen City of Angels (the American remake of this 1987 German film), the story will sound familiar to you. The aesthetic will also be familiar as it inspired the Christmas Lottery bald man's commercial. A phrase? That of the angel Cassiel: "We are only spontaneous within our gravity."
- When? Difficult and intense. It requires the viewer to make an effort to enjoy it.
- With whom? Alone. And it is not suitable for all audiences. Not by physical age, but intellectual.
- Soundtrack Stay, by U2. The song was composed for the soundtrack of the film Faraway, So Close!, a continuation of Wings of Desire
"He who has not had a dog does not know what it is to love or be loved," Arthur Schopenhauer declared. The American remake of the Japanese film Hachiko monogatari (1987) directed by Seijirô Kôyama is based on the true story of a dog so loyal to its owner that it went every day to wait for him at the train station. Currently, at that station, there is a bronze statue erected in its honor. The film portrays the love between two animals of different species and clarifies why nature deems it appropriate for a dog's life expectancy to be shorter than its owner's. Because the dog, unlike the human, never overcomes the death of a friend. "Parker will never come home, but if Hachiko wants to wait for him, he must wait for him."
- When? When you forget that you are also an animal. Or, in other words, when you sense that you are beginning to dehumanize yourself.
- With whom? Preferably with your dog because you will need to cuddle him every five minutes. Don't forget to have a box of tissues nearby.
- Soundtrack I leave you Parker and Hachi walk to the station, although it could be any of the delicate compositions that the composer Jan A.P. Kaczmarek created to move in this work