Zut alors! A gifted English theatre artist, Emma Rice, comes a serious Gallic cropper with The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, a stage musical adaptation of the through-sung 1964 movie that only succeeds in making the recent, prematurely departed Love Story look by comparison like Sweeney Todd. Telling a tale of stupefying banality with po-faced ponderousness and little wit, Rice throws at the material all manner of visual fillips and idiosyncrasies, adding in a narrator (Meow Meow's commendably game Maitresse) for good measure.

Whether it’s consolation, stimulation, or just some old-fashioned romance you’re after this Valentine’s Day, theartsdesk’s team of writers (with a little help from a certain Bard from Stratford) have got it covered. Exhibitions to stir the heart, music to swell the soul, and comedy to help recover from both – we offer our pick of the most romantic of the arts. So from Giselle to Joe Versus the Volcano, from Barthes to the Bard, theartsdesk celebrates the many-splendoured thing that is love.

Judith Flanders

These days Gérard Depardieu looks as though he wouldn't need much padding to play Obélix again. Though he continues to work with some of the biggest names in French cinema, it has been a while since he really surprised us, maybe because he's now such a familiar presence; in 2010 alone, he took on no less than five leading roles and a couple of walk-ons.

There's a fascination that comes with films/ plays/ you choose the art form that contain within them their own critique: the sort of thing you find, for instance, in Chekhov done badly when one character or another opines about how "boring" proceedings have become, and you are tempted to nod in assent. But it's been some while since I sat through anything that shoots itself in the foot with such witless insistence as Dinner for Schmucks, the sickliest and most craven of the numerous "bromances" to come down the cinematic pike of late.

Amid the cinematic dog days of late summer, François Ozon's Le Refuge comes aptly named: a character-led, intimate tale in the style of the late Eric Rohmer that will infuriate those who like their films more purely driven by plot even as it offers a refuge to moviegoers for whom the curves of a pregnant belly or a handsome young man's spine contain within them their own narrative.

Serge Gainsbourg, like Charles Bukowski, is one of those blokes who should be banned as a role model for impressionable young men, who may start imagining they too can behave like disgusting old soaks and pull any gorgeous bird who comes into their orbit. Note to Gainsbourg wannabes -  this only works if you're a creative genius as well.

Sex, blood and shocking - these are the things Catherine Breillat does well. So long as she's busting taboos wide open you can forgive her the longueurs, the wilful refusal to attend to fundamental principles of storytelling, her characters' inclination towards such dreary soliloquising you feel like yelling, "For heaven's sake, shut up and get back to the full-frontal fornicating!" At first glance, the story of Bluebeard would appear to be right up her street.

Kristin Scott Thomas possesses an altogether singular beauty: classical yet faintly wistful, intimidating at times but equally capable of enormous warmth. And because this English rose has professionally blossomed not just in the Anglo-American cinema (and theatre) but also in France, there's something faintly "other" about her. That, in turn, has been useful to this actress's stage turns in Chekhov and Pirandello and accounts for her infinite variety on screen.

The fifth collaboration between iconic French actress Isabelle Huppert and director Benoît Jacquot tells the story of Ann (Huppert), a concert pianist who leaves her partner of 15 years after she sees him passionately kiss another woman. She decides to abandon her life, leaving no trace of her previous existence, and only one friend, Georges (Jean-Hugues Anglade), is allowed to know her plans. She has met Georges for the first time since childhood by a ridiculous contrivance but, as with so much in this film, it helps to go with the flow because Huppert, who appears in almost every scene, is so compellingly watchable.

There's a piquant French perfume to our April round-up. DVD of the month is Olivier Assayas's magnificent family drama Summer Hours, reissued in the US with revealing extras (and available worldwide from Amazon). Maurice Pialat's work is considered at length and Séraphine and Rumba are among the new releases. We unearth an extraordinary Czech epic,The Valley of the Bees, and watch Ernst Lubitsch's delicious early Berlin comedies. Films covered previously, including New Moon, The White Ribbon, 2012 and Zombieland are noted in brief, with a link to the original review. Our critics are Anne Billson, Tom Birchenough, Alexandra Coghlan, Graham Fuller, Fisun Güner, Sheila Johnston, Veronica Lee, Jasper Rees and Adam Sweeting.