Pleure pas my love (1989)
Directed by Tony Gatlif

Film Review

After his critically acclaimed film Les Princes (1982), one of his early films about gypsy life, Tony Gatlif applied his idiosyncratic form of romanticism to a more conventional kind of film that blends rom-com and melodrama.  Pleure pas my love is far from being Gatlif's best work - at times its flamboyant excesses and lack of narrative coherence risk being wearisome - but there is charm enough in this canny reworking of the classic love triangle scenario to hold our attention.  The sombre second half of the film feels somewhat overwrought (a contrived ending being the film's main let down) , but this is made up for by some amusing comedy digressions earlier on, the best being the spectacle of a surprisingly agile Fanny Ardant running barefoot across Paris to catch a bag snatcher.  Pleure pas my love is not a great film but it serves as a satisfying prelude to the remarkable auteur pieces that Gatlif would make over the two decades that followed, arresting portraits of gypsy and nomadic life that include Latcho Drom (1993), Gadjo Dilo (1997) and Swing (2001).

Film Synopsis

One day, Jacques Baronski, a well-regarded filmmaker, is visited by a young man, Fred, who claims to be the son of an actress he once worked with but who subsequently committed suicide.  Baronski is surprised to learn that Fred is his illegitimate son but welcomes him into his household when he realises he is passionately interested in cinema.  Within no time at all, Fred has fallen head over heels in love with Baronski's young partner, Roxane...