L’Amour Ouf by Gilles Lelouch: Do you understand the ending? Explanations! [SPOILERS]

I recommend that you read this article after watching L’amour ouf, as it contains spoilers.

Gilles Lelouch’s L’amour ouf is a wonderful romantic mural that takes place in the 80s and 90s from the youth of its characters, before their meeting and the violent separation caused by Clotre’s arrest. Unification in the background of the eclipse.

The film has the peculiarity of presenting us with a false ending at the beginning and a real ending. Thanks to the use of flash forwards (the film starts with the ending, or should we say the ending) before taking us to the beginning of the story and inviting us to meet the children’s version of Clotter and Jack. But as you may have noticed, the ending we see at the beginning is not the same as the “real” ending. What should we understand? Why this choice? Some elements of explanation.

The question of what choices we make in life is at the heart of the film

“In fact, the false ending would be the true ending if Clotter was as stubborn in bad choices, violence, revenge as he has been since the beginning of the film. Except that there he finally listens and makes the right choice and therefore saves lives and gives birth to love!Gilles Lelouch explained at the time 2024 Cannes Film Festival press conference.

On our mic*, Gilles Lelouch adds:The film revolves a lot around the issue of choice, so for me this was the most consistent way to emphasize this idea of ​​choice..

And quote: “There is a movie called warmth by Michael Mann, where De Niro’s character, at one point, can take a right turn and he goes to his death. Or if he had stayed on the highway and gone straight, he would have run for his life. We turn right or stay straight. That was the idea.”

At Cannes, co-writer Audrey Diwan also gave us details about that ending. “We also told ourselves that it takes time to get used to ourselves. There is a story of love, but it is also a story of identity, of construction.

There’s something they produce on each other, and there’s also something universal about how we construct ourselves over time, about the choices we have to make, how we define and what it is in the moment we make choices that aren’t. More dictated by the context we grew up in and how we move away from it. I believe there’s an air of freedom that I find quite beautiful in these characters because obviously they influence each other. We also see them achieve them.”

The ending seen in the movie is not the same as the first ending

It should also be noted that cuts were made in the final cut of the film. The ending of the film is no longer the same as it was before the audience during the Cannes Film Festival.

A scene dedicated to the musical was cut, reminiscent of Jacques Demmy’s cinema (with its colorimetry) or West Side Story. It was a long dance scene, choreographed by the horde. Adele Exarchopoulos and Francois Civil appeared there, as well as two young actors Mallory Vanek and Malik Fricka. We can bet that this deleted scene will be available on DVD/Blu-ray of the movie. Let’s note that originally a quote appeared at the end of the film: “Love, love, the rest is nothing” by Jean de la Fontaine.

L’amour ouf is currently in theaters.

* Comments collected by Clara Brachin on October 14, 2024