Slices of Parisienne Romance

Paris Je T'aime - 3.5/5



This is not so much a movie but rather a collection of 18 short films, by different directors, each set in a different district of Paris. As you'd expect, the quality is mixed - the weakest ones being Gurinder Chadha's heavy-handed cultural tolerance Quai De Seine segment. Wes Craven's Pere-Lachaise also struggles, mainly because the premise revolves around Emily Mortimer being fed up with Rufus Sewell for having no sense of humour, when he's easily the funniest thing on the screen. Other segments, like Christopher Doyle's Porte de Choisy and Vincenzo Natali's wordless Elijah Wood starring vampire romance in Quartier de la Madeleine, are just plain weird, but entertainingly so.


On the whole, the quality is pretty high with stand out turns by the Coen brothers, Alexander Payne and Tom Tykwer. The Coen's Tuileries section is hilarious and unmistakably them, featuring their favourite actor Steve Buscemi on great form as a hapless tourist on the metro. Payne, also on dstinctive form in 14eme Arrondissement, has character actress Margo Martindale delivering a bad American-French monologue in truly amusing manner before slipping in a genuinely touching conclusion. Whilst Tykwer is a more arty effort - all fast moving montages and repetitive voice-overs as Natalie Portman and Melchior Beslon meet and fall in and out of love in Faubourg Saint-Denis.


Other directors stay true to form - we get gritty social realism from Walter Salles in Loin du 16eme starring Maria Full of Grace's Catalina Sandino Moreno. Whilst most others take a more huomourous approach such as the mime romance of Sylvain Chomet's Tour Eiffel. Some try to use the shorter medium to tell stories with a twist, of which Alfonso Cuaron's Parc Monceau (Starring a very gravelly Nick Nolte) is rather less predictable than Gus Van Sant's Le Marais. Few manage to successfully combine the humour with genuine feeling, of which perhaps the most successful and surprising is Richard LaGravenese's Pigalle starring Bob Hoskins and Fanny Ardent.


The range of talent on display here is genuinely impressive, and although varied, there is enough overall quality to make it well worth checking out.