PARIS

I never quite got into the hype that was Paris, je t'aime - you remember that movie made up of 18 stand-alone 5 minute segments about love and Paris which was so contrived and boring that I never actually made it to the end despite the big name actors and directors involved. There are ways to do love letters to your favourite city. Woody Allen was a master at it with his films about New York (and he looks like he has struck gold with his upcoming love letter to Barcelona), of course Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard were unrivalled at bringing France to life in the 60's and even outsiders like Richard Linklater could go to a city they didn't grow up in and do something magnificent with Paris and Vienna in his Before Sunrise/Sunset films. All four of those men realised that pretty visuals and shots can't do it alone. You can shoot the Eiffel tower all day but it would never match seeing it for yourself. The most important way to make a city light up is CHARACTER - make the characters shine and interesting, and the city will do the rest for itself. I'm delighted to say that a new French movie playing on limited release in the U.K. right now, simply and perfectly titled Paris - has possibly some of the most interesting characters in a city love letter film I've ever seen and thankfully it's a film that goes back and fourth through several characters and isn't just 5 minute different self contained stories which is undoubtedly the most boring gimmick in film right now. The plot of the film is that a professional dancer by the name of Pierre (Romain Duris) has severe heart trouble, desperately in need of a transplant to save his life, but even then the doctors have told him it only has a 50% chance of being successful... which he interprets as meaning 40%. Echoing a plot used in a far superior early 60's French movie by the name of Cleo de 5 a 7 by director Agnes Varda which similarly revolved around a young female singer who roamed the streets of Paris worried about visiting her doctor as she believed she had cancer and was to die - this movie carries the distinct difference of Pierre, for the most part, only being able to experience the world from his flat. He is no condition to live the lives the French people do each day. He can't run for buses anymore, commute to work. Instead he watches other people from his apartment window in what becomes his own "mini movies". The mini movies though are surprisingly interesting and often quite powerful. Most interesting to me was a fed up history professor by the name of Roland who no longer does more than the bare minimal for his students and career but after his father dies, he is convinced to take on a new role as a t.v. historian. He doesn't particularly think he is having a midlife crisis, though he will pay to see a shrink and develop a sexual fascination which borders on stalking for one of his students. He's played by veteran French actor Fabrice Luchini and plays creepy/sympatheic/intelligent/pathetic very well indeed. Possibly the most touching moment of the film is when he is broadcasting from the famous Catacombs and he breaks down by the site of death all around him, the first time he is fully able to grieve for his father. Luchini is an actor that always impresses me and I'm actually surprised that the Hollywood industry haven't come calling to offer him a supporting role here and there, he has such a great presence and memorable face. Roland's brother Phillippe (Francois Cluzet), an archeticut who is also grieving for this father begins to worry over his "normal life" and in another memorable scene is plunged into a 3D virtual reality portal he uses to sell his housing projects and is a nightmare view of the consumerist life he leads and promotes with his work. And then with possibly the most sympathetic but maybe under developed major character is Elise, Pierre's sister who takes time off work to look after her sick brother but also uses incidentally uses the free time to find love herself. She is played with a fair amount of effort from Juliette Binoche but her smile and laugh in this one didn't light up the screen as it did in Dan in Real Life but then I guess this is a far less optimistic and bleak film. Whilst certainly being a love letter to the city of Paris, writer/director Cédric Klapisch has made a movie that is very damning to the ever changing landscape of the beautiful city. Each character here hores themselves out, the professor who takes on a job to literally prostitue the city by doing a history show to improve tourism - something he loathes (and of course in the process horing the city out too), the student who will sleep around, the sister who will take care of her brother at the expense of her own life (though it has to be said she is seen sympathetically here), again the city of Paris which is hored out to a immigrant in Cameroon who see's the image of Notre Dame and believes it can be his saviour. The character of the archeticut, who has the "material life" of the perfect things, the perfect woman and if it's not right... he will purchase and make it so. It's no surprise he is the teary one at funerals because it's the one thing he can't fix with money. The movie is rather a tough sell, I'm not going to deny it. Those looking for a rather hopeful view of the world's most romantic and evocative city you might have expected with the title Paris are going to be disappointed and despite some terrific character work which are often able to create great emotion when the material is lacking - or a little flat, the movie really feels empty on so many levels. There's so many more characters I haven't mentioned here whose character arc are suddenly cut off or just forgotten about. I've never seen the pictures of Cedric Klapisch before but he sure seems angry here. There's a nasty under-tone to this movie, as if the dying dancer is the one last bit of creative and artful hope the city has but is too being sucked out of existence. Though it's never boring, it's so much better than Paris je'taime and for that I am very grateful.

rating: 3

Paris is on very limited release in the U.K. (it currently has no U.S. distribution deal), so if your interested in the movie make sure you check to see your local cinema below and the date it begins showing. It probably won't be playing for long, so don't delay... 25th July Odeon Covent Garden Glasgow Film Theatre Edinburgh Filmhouse Nottingham Broadway Showroom Sheffield Irish Film Institute Oxford Phoenix 8th August Dundee Contemporary Arts Exeter Picturehouse Phoenix Arts Leicester 15th August Chichester New Park Newcastle Tyneside Lighthouse Wolverhampton Royal Leamington Spa Cornerhouse Manchester 22nd August Aberdeen Belmont Bristol Watershed Bradford Picville Kino Cork 29th August Plymouth Arts Centre Kings Lynn Arts Centre Barn Dartington Queens Film Theatre 12th September Ludlow Assembly Rooms 19th September Northampton Forum 31st September Theatr Clwyd Mold