A sweet and simple romantic tale wrapped within a challenging meta framework, Florian Habicht’s Love Story is simultaneously about the art and the artist and universal longing for connection.
A winning blend of soft-hearted cinematic romance and doco-style human insight.
Casting himself in the lead role, the German-born New Zealand filmmaker constructs an ultra-modern take on the age-old 'when strangers meet’ premise. Here, Habicht randomly notices a stunning woman carrying a gaudy slice of cake on a train carriage and sets about wooing her. The novel twist is that the director lets the people of New York dictate his romantic narrative; hitting the streets at all hours to discuss with strangers the real-world vicissitudes of love, he then imposes these experiences and views upon his developing relationship.
Apart from the director – a giggly, eccentric charmer whose buoyantly Kiwi bonhomie goes a long way to drawing out the best of New York’s characters – the key players here are love interest Masha Yakovenko, a statuesque presence whose initially chilly air is broken down in some remarkably intimate scenes; and, Florian’s father Frank Habicht (via Skype), an acclaimed photographer in his own right and a reassuring voice when the director paints himself into a narrative corner; for instance, it is Frank who gives Florian the idea to use a dwarf Michael Jackson impersonator...
Love Story has been compared to Woody Allen’s finest (specifically Annie Hall and Manhattan), as any NYC-set romance seems destined to be. Habicht certainly captures the sights and sounds of the metropolis in much the same way Allen does (music grabs from Ennio Morricone, Lalo Schifrin, Nino Rota and Georges Delerue add to the film-buff atmospherics). But whereas Allen’s New York is an intellectual’s playground, filled with professors and writers and artists consumed by existential angst, Habicht’s Big Apple is peopled with homeless men who weep as they recall their first crush, or bisexuals who have known love in many forms, or exuberant street-poets who espouse the beautiful sameness of all mankind, or pragmatic pre-teens falling in love for the first time.
It is these bit players who keep the film grounded when all the flamboyant idiosyncrasies of the star/director threaten to get carried away with over-styling and profundity. The reed-thin Habicht gets a little too quirky at times; his penchant for working on his laptop in the bath seems staged, the apartment is too coolly production-designed and the disgusting spectacle of Masha eating cereal from the cavity of Habicht’s sunken chest is as icky as it sounds. Admittedly, the scene follows a prompt from people on the street, but the director had the choice of which reactions to use...
Minor shortcomings aside, Love Story is a winning blend of soft-hearted cinematic romance and doco-style human insight. Already a hit with festival audiences (it has played well with crowds at Hot Docs, NZIFF and MIFF as well as collecting the Best Film Award at the New Zealand 'Oscars’), Habicht’s uniquely lovely film effortlessly generates warmth and will be remembered fondly by romantic movie aficionados.
