I am really confused after watching this movie. I wanted Carol and Antoine to be the soul mates. All throughout the movie, they show the audience the signs (i.e. Antoine still thinking about Carol, the pictures, their family) how did he end up with Rose? I am really saddened by the end. I was thinking this to be a great love story. I feel like Carol right now. I am so disappointed.
shareI thought it was very clear, though the way it was told was very confusing, but only the modern day story was confusing, not the Paris 1969 story.
Carol was Laurent's mother in her past life; Antoine was Laurent; and Rose was Vero.
Laurent's mother was consumed by her love for her son, just as Carol was consumed by her love for Antoine. Once Carol realized what she did to Laurent, i.e., Antoine, and to Rose, i.e., Vero, because of her almost insane attachment to her son/Antoine, she let them both go and actually was happy for them, and that makes perfect sense. She realized Antoine and Rose were soul mates, and she had yet to find hers, in this life or the next (or the next or the next, etc.).
I wasn't too crazy about this whole "past life" aspect of the story, and I wasn't that interested in the whole Antoine and Rose relationship, but Vanessa Paradis blew me away. That whole storyline and performance was very intense and credible. Until seeing this film, I only knew her vaguely as a French pop star and Johnny Depp's ex. She is a fearless and brilliant actress.
Carol was not Laurent's mother in a past life.
That is what she made herself believe in order to forgive Antoine and in order for her and all her family to continue with their lives.
The Director has even said it in several interviews.
My thread 'You Have Got It All Wrong' makes it clearer.
I am reading your post in 2016 , basically in another life :)
and I am sorry to say it's not correct.
Full Vallée interview still at http://www.sbs.com.au/movies/article/2012/04/26/cafe-de-flore-jean-marc-vallee-interview
"Vallée is adamant that the film does not reflect a personal philosophical belief. “Audiences can choose if the film is about reincarnation and past lives, if that's what they believe, which I don't,” he says. “Or they can believe that the film has come from within a character's imagination. I wanted to give the audience those choices.”
or at NY Times
“Café de Flore,” although handsomely filmed and convincingly acted, goes increasingly off track the more it concentrates on Carole, a sleepwalker with premonitory dreams who is so troubled that she consults a medium. As the two stories come together around the theme of interlocking destinies, with suggestions of reincarnation, the movie floats into the ozone.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/09/movies/cafe-de-flore-by-jean-marc-vallee.html
The story remembers me Cloud Atlas that says
You keep reincarnating until fix what you did wrong, then you have the possibility to find happiness.
You are the one that is wrong. Read the Director/scriptwriter's following interview with Vancouver based culture paper published on 3 March 2012 where Jean Marc Vallee is much more clear on the 'past live' aspect of the film vs. psychological necessity:
http://www.thesnipenews.com/movies/interview-cafe-de-flore-director-jean-marc-vallee/
Rachel Fox: The film plays with all kinds of notions about past lives and the memories from them. Do you believe in reincarnation?
Jean Marc Vallee: It’s not a part of my life. For the duration of the film I had to be aware, to do my research. I think it’s a beautiful theory but it’s not a part of my life. But, at the same time I didn’t make a film about that.
A character in the film is using this to find an explanation. I am not trying to say, “This is me, this is what I believe and I want you to believe in this” – it’s not that at all. It’s one character and she goes there. You know why she goes there? Because she’s suffering. And when you suffer, you try to understand. And since she doesn’t find any answers with the rational thing she goes into the irrational.
RF: The final shot of the film is this very slow zoom into an old black and white photo within another photo. It’s very much like The Shining. Was that on purpose?
JMV: I know, of course, it looks like The Shining. When I finished writing it I put the period on the paper and thought that everyone’s going to think that. But I thought then, “*beep* it,” because it’s not exactly like The Shining, which was not a film about past lives but a *beep* spooky thing. In this case it was a picture taken by the father of Antoine many years before in Paris and it’s so out of focus – what I like about it is there’s two ways or more to explain the film.
For the people who would like to believe in Carole’s theory of past lives and reincarnation – well there you go, you got your answer if you want to go there. But it’s [the picture] so out of focus, it could be anything; it could be a rock, it could be a tree. There are some keys in the film, where I say my explanation of this is from Carole’s brain and imagination.
One key that tells that is the record [The Matthew Herbert Big Band‘s “Café de Flore”] from the ’60s – this can only come from Carole’s imagination. This record is a fabrication, the song was created in 2001. It’s an anachronism. It’s impossible. That’s how I wrote it. But I’d like the audience to choose their own thing. I am not imposing my ideas onto them.