Culver City Observer -

Men - Listen up! Women do not expect perfection. Just give women a chance...

Every woman can relate to this: You meet a man and you just try to get past the things that bother you because he has all the other things. He has everything, let's say, but there's just one negative. Would you let that stop you?

It's a problem for anyone looking for love, not just women.

Let's say the guy has all the essential parts of the package, but there's one little thing that bothers you. But it bothers you. Would you continue to get to know the guy, to let the relationship develop, especially if you're falling in love?

Then that's the tradeoff, with the package. What do you do?

This is a universal problem. Has it ever happened to you?

Let's take it further: it's a challenge whether it's love or work or friendship. You have this great friend, it's just that something about them troubles you. Or you learn about this superb job, with just one little negative, but it's your right to be negative about that negative. Or is it your flaw?

Should you hold your breath and jump in? Or would you be stopped cold by that small thing?

I saw a Up for Love, a beautifully-caught movie at the Colcoa French Film Festival. Dianne, our heroine, has high hopes as she goes to meet Alexandre. He's utterly charming on the phone, and in person too - it's just that he's very short. Extremely short.

The movie stars Jean Dujardin, who won an Oscar as Best Actor for The Artist. He's delightful, humorous, self-deprecating, smart, classy, thoughtful, and completely at peace with the way his short height is viewed by other people. And the size of a ten year-old.

Dianne, played by Virginie Efira. knows that the only thing that should matter is her happiness. And Alexandre makes her happy. It's just that, she tells her mother, "I have all these images of what love's supposed to look like."

You've got to see what Jean Dujardin looks like as a 4'5" person with special effects. The film was an international premiere, shown here even ahead of its debut in France; it was quite a coup for Colcoa.

I asked Grégoire Vigneron, the co-writer, what was he trying to say when he wrote the film, adapted from an Argentinian work.

Unlike most romcoms, this movie looks at a more interesting question: will they be able to stick together in the end?

The essential question: Who's the emotional midget, Alexandre or Dianne?

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So many intriguing films, so little time! Colcoa was held at the Directors Guild; screening facilities were accordingly superb. Choosing what to see was like being a kid in a candystore. So many of the topics were right out of today's headlines.

Banned where it was shot, Much Love was the West Coast premiere of a movie about women driven to desperation by poverty. They form a little unit of prostitutes showing the violence they attract in their struggle to survive. The film takes a rich look at double standards in the Arab world set in the underside of Morocco as the women try to hang onto a smidgeon of dignity. It's mind-boggling to imagine how a film like this ever was able to get made.

The terror of being attacked at home, the question of whether it's "when" and not "if", is the story of Made in France. As a journalist infiltrates a home-grown terror cell in Paris, it's the challenge of laying down with dogs but evading the fleas. Seen in its U.S. premiere, this was a different glance at a story of survival. The movie is dark, realistic enough to be happening right now; yet we cling to the hope it's not prescient.

It's fascinating to see Jean Dujardin as a different kind of guy in the American premiere of Un Plus Une. Here he's the universal image of the cool guy who can never commit. Set against stunning photography of traditional India, Antoine, played by Dujardin, travels to Mumbai to record music for a modern-day Romeo/Juliet movie done in Bollywood style. When he falls for the French Ambassador's wife, he follows her on a spiritual journey to visit Amma, who transforms people with her embrace. Amma's a real person; she's hugged more than 34 million people who come to her for inspiration.

Written and directed by Claude Lelouch, Un Plus Une sets up an homage to Lelouch's most famous film, A Man and A Woman, filmed 50 years ago. After six decades of creating films about love, you see the touches: in the last scenes, Lelouch echoes his couple who again pass each other by accident, without words but with those looks. You see Anouk Aimée and Jean-Louis Trintignant in today's world; the story's a fresh variation, but just that.

Love's eternal.

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©Carole Bell 2016 Carole Bell is a writer interested in everything.

You can write to her at: smartspicy1@gmail.com