I can hear the naysayers already.
"Paris?? You better be talkin' 'bout Paris, Texas, cause I hate the French."
"Love stories? I'm not into 'love story' movies. Thanks, anyway."
"A movie set in Paris about love stories? Hell no! And I hate subtitles."
Well, your loss, if that's your thinking. Paris, je t'aime is easily one of the best movies of the year, with good reason, too—after all, this anthology of 18 short films, each set in one of Paris' arrondissements, counts some of the best actors and directors in the business amongst its participants. This is a demonstration of what movies are (or should be) all about—a range of emotions, terrific acting, a wide array of styles, good stories—it's got it all.
To avoid turning this into a book (which it might end up being anyway, but stay with me here), I won't give a complete rundown of all 18, but here are some notes for each, given in the order they appear onscreen, with the title and director noted:
Montmartre - directed by Bruno Podalydès, starring Podalydès and Florence Muller. A slow start featuring a lonely man and some serendipity. Not great, not bad.
Quais de Seine - directed by Gurinder Chadha, starring Leïla Bekhti and Cyril Descours. A quiet teen meets a girl from a different background, and possibly opens his eyes a bit. A tad syrupy, but not bad nonetheless.
Le Marais - directed by Gus Van Sant, starring Gaspard Ulliel, Elias McConnell and Marianne Faithfull. Van Sant starts this off slow, but a twist at the end makes it.
Tuileries - directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, starring Steve Buscemi, Axel Kiener and Julie Bataille. One of the two or three best. I won't ruin it, but let's just say that it's Steve Buscemi like you've never seen him before. Funny as hell, and gets you itching for vintage Coen brothers.
Loin du 16e - directed by Walter Salles and Daniela Thomas, starring Catalina Sandino Moreno. Contains by far the least amount of story compared to the rest, but is still poignant. Think of it as more of a detour. A bit depressing as well.
Porte de Choisy - directed by Christopher Doyle, starring Barbet Schroeder and Li Xin. Odd. Bizarre. Strange. You name it, this one is weird—in a bad way.
Bastille - directed by Isabel Coixet, starring Sergio Castellitto, Miranda Richardson and Leonor Watling. Middle ground here, as this short tells the tale of an adulterous husband who changes his stripes.
Place des Victoires - directed by Nobuhiro Suwa, starring Juliette Binoche, Hippolyte Girardot and Willem Dafoe. One of the two saddest in the film. Dafoe's appearance is a bit disconcerting, but still welcome. Those with kids will be hit hard by this one.
Tour Eiffel - directed by Sylvain Chomet, starring Paul Putner and Yolande Moreau. Mime alert! Don't be too scared, though—this one's pretty funny, and the little kid is cute as hell.
Parc Monceau - directed by Alfonso Cuarón, starring Nick Nolte and Ludivine Sagnier. I was really disappointed by this one as I'm a big Cuarón fan. It's not terrible, but I would have thought his would have been amongst the best. Nick Nolte is borderline impossible to understand, in French or English; he's fully turned into Gary Busey at this point.
Quartier des Enfants Rouges - directed by Olivier Assayas, starring Maggie Gyllenhaal and Lionel Dray. Maggie speaks French well (at least it sounds that way to my far-from-fluent ears). This one has promise, but kind of dies at the end. Not great overall.
Article comments