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Ehsan Khoshbakht Presents Rouben Mamoulian's LOVE ME TONIGHT at the 23rd FICM

Gustavo R. Gallardo

A restored version of Rouben Mamoulian's (Georgia, 1897) film Love Me Tonight was screened on Saturday as part of the Mexico Imaginario program at the 23rd edition of the Morelia International Film Festival (FICM).

Presented with the festival's founder and General Director, Daniela Michel in attendance, Ehsan Khoshbakht, co-director of Il Cinema Ritrovato, explained that Love Me Tonight, filmed in 1932, is part of the transition from silent to sound cinema in the United States.

“Rouben Mamoulian was one of the people who facilitated the processes that made it possible,” Khoshbakht stressed, adding that Mamoulian was part of a whole group of foreigners who “really made the film industry great.”

Love Me Tonight takes place in late 19th-century Paris, where a resourceful tailor pretends to be a baron to collect a debt from an aristocrat. However, his charade takes an unexpected turn when he falls in love with a princess who is as beautiful as she is unapproachable. Amidst dances, secrets, and pretences, he must decide whether to uphold the lie that opened luxury's doors to him or reveal his true identity to avoid losing the love he never imagined finding.

“Mamoulian doesn't make movies like a filmmaker, but like an actor, a musician, and he believed that the best movies strive to be musicals,” explained Khoshbakht.

Love Me Tonight was one of the films which innovated by using music as part of the narrative and not to pause the story, as was the case with other films of the time: “It's a rather strange musical. Mamoulian was also a pioneer in the use of zooms and close-ups. I can confirm that he revolutionized the concept.”