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Claude Lelouch is a populist filmmaker no longer popular with audiences either in his native France or among the large international following he created once upon a time with such hits as A Man and a Woman and And Now My Love.

Men and Women, which opened this week's annual French film festival in Los Angeles, finds Lelouch struggling to rediscover the formula of Gallic charm and star-crossed lovers that made him such a boxoffice favorite. The film has strong moments where he does reclaim the old magic. But the picture wears out its welcome long before the final reel and fails to make the necessary tonal changes to include episodes of depression, murder and suicide in an otherwise lighthearted ode to the glories of romantic love.

The film's theatrical outlook is problematic. It actually is a cannibalization of the first two films in an apparently now-abandoned trilogy called Genre humain, or Human Kind. The first film, Les Parisiens, disappeared within a month of release, so Lelouch scrambled to save the project by pulling together footage from the two films to create the version that debuted here. Without having seen Les Parisiens, it is hard to say whether he has helped or harmed his cause. But Men and Women definitely jumps around among too many characters and subplots to diminishing audience involvement.

What emerges as the central romance or romantic triangle of the piece belongs a pair of street singers and the barmaid who falls for the male. Shaa (Maiwenn) is a vagabond and petty thief who spots Massimo (Italian pop singer/actor Massimo Ranieri) singing on the street one day. She seduces him into turning his act into a duo. In the best tradition of old Hollywood musicals, the two swiftly find success in a nightclub, where Anne (Mathilde Seigner) can't take her eyes off Massimo between serving cocktails.

A music impresario soon takes Shaa aside and offers her -- but not them -- a contract. Without a moment's thought, she dumps Massimo for a chance at stardom. Massimo goes into an emotional tailspin (while at the same time writing a great song about lost love), threatens suicide or a return to Italy before Anne rescues him and -- voila! -- he becomes a star and Shaa turns into such a flop that she is able to pen a mea culpa memoir that becomes -- yes, it does -- a best seller.

And that's only one of the stories in "Men and Women!"

Anne's identical twin (also Seigner, of course) works for a pizza-parlor magnate (Michel Leeb), an uneducated, self-made man who on whim marries a beautiful stage actress and sophisticated aristocrat (Arielle Dombasle). His wife eventually takes up a clandestine affair with the chauffeur (Yannick Soulier), who is really a thief. There's a police detective who dies of cancer early in the movie, so his wife can marry her lover, who works as a singer at the same nightclub where Anne works. Later, a movie director (Lelouch himself) shows up to buy rights to Shaa's memoir to turn it into a film starring Shaa and Massimo, and the movie threatens to start all over again.

So a million things are going on with different levels of reality, but weary viewers can be excused for no longer caring. If the characters would simply sit down with a glass of wine and talk to each other, half their problems would get solved. The exuberant, new wave style of early Lelouch, where the camera pirouettes all over the set, is, thankfully, gone. In its place, though, is this mad hopping among subplots so that the focus never stays on anything for too long.

As a pop stylist, Lelouch must confront the fact that for French moviegoers he has been eclipsed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Jean-Paul Salome (whose exotic Arsene Lupin plays in the festival). At one point in this move, Anne tells Massimo that most of his songs are "too old." One wonders whether Lelouch, when he wrote that line, winced a little.

MEN AND WOMEN

Les Films 13 in association with Canal Plus

Credits:

Director: Claude Lelouch

Writers: Claude Lelouch, Pierre Uytterhoeven

Producers: Jean-Paul De Vidas, Claude Lelouch

Director of photography: Gerard de Battista

Production designer: Francois Chauvaud

Music: Francis Lai

Costumes: Karine Serrano

Editor: Stephane Mazalaigue

Cast:

Massimo: Massimo Ranieri

Shaa: Maiwenn

Clementine/Anne: Mathilde Seigner

Sabine Duchemin: Arielle Dombasle

Michael Gorkini: Michel Leeb

No MPAA rating

Running time -- 128 minutes...

PARIS -- French director Claude Lelouch, whose latest film Les Parisiens has received a spate of bad reviews in the French press, said on Thursday he would offer a free screening of the film on Friday "to allow the public to judge for themselves." "Faced with an unprecedented outcry in the press against my film, and to allow the public to form their own opinion, I offer a free screening of the film in the 400 theaters where the film opened Wednesday," Lelouch said in a statement. The first part of Lelouch's Le Genre Humain (Humankind) trilogy, Les Parisiens, about the ephemeral nature of love in the face of fame, was slammed in the press after it opened the Deauville American film festival Sept. 3.

DEAUVILLE, France -- It took a whistle-stop tour Saturday by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks to add some fizz to the Deauville Festival of American Cinema's 30th birthday party, a day after the festival's low-key Friday-night bow with a French film, Claude Lelouch's Les Parisiens. Hanks led a motley bunch of festival organizers and former MPAA head Jack Valenti, who has been at every festival since it started in 1975, through a soulful rendition of "Happy Birthday." The actor and Spielberg sportingly blew out candles, posed for pictures and saved a little girl from being weighed down by the three-tiered cake, adding some spark to the onstage celebration. Susan Eisenhower, who is being honored by the fest for her grandfather Dwight D. Eisenhower's historic role on the Normandy coast on D-Day 60 years ago, and her daughter Amy, joined in the singing. The evening ended with the French premiere of Spielberg's The Terminal. The actor and director were in town for barely nine hours to plug the film, which they did at a lively press conference Saturday. Spielberg, who is being honored by the festival with a 22-film retrospective to mark his 30-year contribution to cinema, left for Paris late Saturday to receive another honor. French President Jacques Chirac awarded the director-producer with France's top cultural award, the Legion of Honor, at a Sunday ceremony in the Elysees Palace, calling him a great filmmaker, committed to fighting hatred and intolerance through the films he makes.

DEAUVILLE, France -- It took a whistle-stop tour Saturday by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks to add some fizz to the Deauville Festival of American Cinema's 30th birthday party, a day after the festival's low-key Friday-night bow with a French film, Claude Lelouch's Les Parisiens. Hanks led a motley bunch of festival organizers and former MPAA head Jack Valenti, who has been at every festival since it started in 1975, through a soulful rendition of "Happy Birthday." The actor and Spielberg sportingly blew out candles, posed for pictures and saved a little girl from being weighed down by the three-tiered cake, adding some spark to the onstage celebration. Susan Eisenhower, who is being honored by the fest for her grandfather Dwight D. Eisenhower's historic role on the Normandy coast on D-Day 60 years ago, and her daughter Amy, joined in the singing. The evening ended with the French premiere of Spielberg's The Terminal. The actor and director were in town for barely nine hours to plug the film, which they did at a lively press conference Saturday. Spielberg, who is being honored by the festival with a 22-film retrospective to mark his 30-year contribution to cinema, left for Paris late Saturday to receive another honor. French President Jacques Chirac awarded the director-producer with France's top cultural award, the Legion of Honor, at a Sunday ceremony in the Elysees Palace, calling him a great filmmaker, committed to fighting hatred and intolerance through the films he makes.

PARIS -- Organizers of the Deauville Festival of American Cinema said Thursday that the event will open with a French film -- Le Genre Humain -- 1: Les Parisiens, the first installment of Claude Lelouch's Genre Humain (Humankind) trilogy -- for the first time in the festival's 30-year history. Humain will screen out of competition at the festival, which runs Sept. 3-12. Lelouch, who heads the festival's jury, offered the film for its world premiere as a special 30th birthday gift, organizers said. The €35 million ($43.2 million) trilogy, funded almost entirely by Lelouch, has been almost 35 years in the making. Organizers said they are honored to unspool its first part. About the foibles of male-female relationships, Les Parisiens stars Massimo Ranieri, Mathilde Seigner, Arielle Dombasle. Lelouch plays himself in the film, and his partner, Alessandra Martines, and some of his seven children also have roles.

Organizers of this year's Deauville Festival Of American Cinema said Thursday the event will open with a French film for the first time in its 30-year history. The festival, which runs September 3 through 12, will open with Les Parisiens, the first instalment of Claude Lelouch's trilogy, Le Genre Humain (Humankind) in a out-of-competition screening.

PARIS -- Organizers of the Deauville Festival of American Cinema said Thursday that the event will open with a French film -- Le Genre Humain -- 1: Les Parisiens, the first installment of Claude Lelouch's Genre Humain (Humankind) trilogy -- for the first time in the festival's 30-year history. Humain will screen out of competition at the festival, which runs Sept. 3-12. Lelouch, who heads the festival's jury, offered the film for its world premiere as a special 30th birthday gift, organizers said. The €35 million ($43.2 million) trilogy, funded almost entirely by Lelouch, has been almost 35 years in the making. Organizers said they are honored to unspool its first part. About the foibles of male-female relationships, Les Parisiens stars Massimo Ranieri, Mathilde Seigner, Arielle Dombasle. Lelouch plays himself in the film, and his partner, Alessandra Martines, and some of his seven children also have roles.