Over this weekend, I saw Paris, Je t'Aime (Paris, I Love You), eighteen international directors have composed a collective ode to the magical, innately lyrical place. The result, while bursting with perhaps a few too many stories, is well worth a viewing for the performances and stories that are at once haunting, charming, relatable and life-affirming.
Yes, Love in all its weird and wonderful forms is the subject of this 18 short films made by an assortment of international directors who bring individual vision to a collective love letter to the French capital. Most of the directors have written their own pieces, and they range from whimsical to romantic, to dramatic and tragic. With many familiar faces including Juliette Binoche, Fanny Ardant, Natalie Portman, Nick Nolte, Steve Buscemi, Bob Hoskins and Gena Rowlands, the film is necessarily uneven but has an overall winning charm.
Given only a few minutes to present their segment, each director spins their own Parisian love song within a different district of the sprawling city. There are the requisite stories of meet-cute and first attraction, the resurfacing of old flames, and validation of relationships taken for granted. Those scenes are charming enough, especially with an omnipresent tinkling of French accordions in the background to give the film an airy, sentimental feeling; but love is not always sweet, and the stories that deftly examine non-romantic love, and even loss and longing, prove to be the most moving of the entire collection.
Ofcourse watching with English subtitles (Since I cannot understand French) may be not the fun part. Atleast they should have version with English voice over. Anyways, Concept was great and Movie was Brilliant.
Sunday, July 01, 2007
Paris, Je t'Aime
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2 comments:
That was damn neat:)) Loved your writeup!!!!
I actually like the foreign movies with the original voices; ofcourse, it has pros and cons. But I think it's more live. But may be it depends on movies. I've seen the difference watching indian movies with subtitles; how horrible and poor some subtitles are.
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