THE NAMES OF LOVE Review

Baya Benmahmoud is one young girl who takes the phrase "Make love, not war" to its logical extreme.

If that phrase sounds familiar to you, it merely means that you've read at least one of the many, many domestic reviews of "The Names of Love". The majority of them start basically the same way. Why is an interesting question. A lot of it no doubt has to do with the sometimes stale and homogenous state of mainstream film criticism today. But beyond that, perhaps "The Names of Love", an off-kilter romance aiming to be something a little loftier, isn't offering enough for these critics to truly seize upon. Whatever the case, the zeitgeist has spoken, and there is exactly one initial approach to this intriguing and funny yet curiously flawed French film.

Jacques Gamblin and Sara Forestier play Arthur Martin and Baya Benmahmoud, a mismatched pair living in modern day France. He is a soft-spoken levelheaded animal protective expert of hidden Jewish decent; she is openly of Arab descent (although, as its pointed out, she doesn't look it) and is a "Girls Gone Wild" version of a political activist, right down to her breasts casually flopping out of her loose shirt as she provokes her ideological opponents. Indeed, her primary modus operandi is to convert her political enemies by sleeping with them - something she has down to a science. That is, until Arthur comes along, who is neither her political enemy nor sympathetic to her ways. But Arthur is a rescuer, and so, one prolonged absent-minded naked stroll through town (yes, this admittedly amusing but also altogether gratuitous bit really happens) is all it takes for Baya to send him frantically running to her, his jacket at the ready. Truth be told, these memorable characters are far and away the film's strongest aspect, and Gamblin and Forestier's magnetically charming portrayals of them are film's primary saving grace.

The fact that "The Names of Love" is fully steeped in long standing racism inherent within the French culture, particularly that directed at Arabs and Jews, is at once both its common denominator and its separation flashpoint. On one hand, there is a general understanding among most people that racism, whatever its form, is a complex and universal failing within human nature. But on the other hand, when this film dives headlong into dissecting the particular racisms stated above without the benefit of casual explanation for the international audience, the international audience is bound to lose out on the depth of commentary. This is not a failing of the film, per se; merely yet another object lesson in how cultural specifics are so often lost in translation.

George Romero, for one, understands that when talking cinematically about racism, it's best to do so with zombies (or some similar device). Otherwise, we're left with straight drama - a more "respectable" method, sure, but also one less tuned to the cinematic strengths of symbolism and metaphor, not to mention always-appreciated psychotronic bombast. Strip away the Romero flourishes to get a straight take on the dicey subject of race relations, and, best-case scenario, you're left with "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner", itself a respectable and competent if also transparently self-important film.

There are no zombies in "The Names of Love", although there is a "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" sequence that may be considered cinematically undead, if not merely some sort of shoehorned homage. In it, the mismatched protagonists - a new couple, each culturally independent of their parents, if never psychologically - have their wildly diverse parental sets over for an introductory meal. His folks are traditionalist dullards who live by sequestering anything in their past that may be deemed unfavorable. On the flipside, her mother is a straight-talking former hippie radical with a husband of clear Arabian decent. Unlike Stanley Kramer's classic film, the encounter is played first for raw tension, then quickly shifts to sit-com level awkwardity.

Such mishandled tonal shifts are all too common in this well-meaning commentary of a film. Relatively green writer/director Michel Leclerc tells his story ala Truffaut: as a series of vignettes that remain interconnected under the umbrella of the whole. Unlike Truffaut, however, Leclerc lets his attention bounce detrimentally from human interest to politics. Stylistically, he tries some things that can only ultimately be chalked up to forced cleverness, particularly within the film's long trudge of an opening, where the main characters appear within long-winded flashback sequences detailing the minutia of their separate family lineages. Leclerc tries his darndest to make this massive expository dump go down easier at the outset, but it's just the first pothole on a bumpy road to a clichéd destination.

"The Names of Love" has as about as much going for it as it has wrong with it. Gamblin and Forestier carry the film so spectacularly well that it's a true shame that Leclerc's attempted examination of modern day race relations in France falls into an intellectually dishonesty that is steeped in shallow idealism. "The Names of Love" can scarcely be publicly beaten for this, as this sort of thing is all too common, and even expected in the lesser bulk of today's sociological probing movies. ("We are all really just the same, after all!") Yes, there are broad commonalities in all people, transcending race and other such barriers, but let's not pretend that a contrived eleventh hour resolution is all we need to truly put the barriers behind us. Leclerc, with considerable help from Gamblin and Forestier, may leave us feeling good about cinematic humanity's ability to transcend pointless hatreds at the drop of a hat, but I guarantee you that George Romero would never let this happen! With him, it's more about the braiiiiiins!! (Let the other critics chew on THAT!)

- Jim Tudor