The eerily fantastical exception to all the other more or less down-to-earth segments is Vincenzo Natali’s “Quartier de la Madeleine,” with Elijah Wood as a young man roaming the night and falling in love with a vampire played by Olga Kurylenko. One ironic part in the transition is that Natali’s piece is followed directly by the one from Wes Craven, who probably just as easily could have directed the vampire piece. Craven instead goes for the sublime in a lightly supernatural romantic comedy with Rufus Sewell and Emily Mortimer as an engaged couple that gets some timely advice from the ghost of Oscar Wilde (played in a weird cameo by Alexander Payne).

What particularly makes the feature, conceived by Tristan Came and Emmanuel Benbihy, a must-see for film-lovers is the opportunity to see how each director is able to project his or her own themes into the city of Paris. Constructing a short sets another kind of challenge for a director who normally directs features and having that limited amount of time, I think, forces most of the directors to resort to the issues and styles closest to their hearts. To then see their trademarks grafted onto the genre of romance and see the artists tests its conventions is consistently fascinating to watch.

By the time the film is over, we realize that perhaps even the imperfections of the movie and its characters are a part of its artistic design. Life is imperfect and the joy and the heartache resulting from love equally serve as truthful indications that we truly care about someone. All we can wish for is to hold on to the things we find memorable, whether bitter or sweet, and Paris, je t’aime likewise offers much to treasure.