Hello, and happy 2012 to all my lovely readers! One of my resolutions this year is to post more on here. I'm hoping to focus on film reviews, although I will be putting up other things, like music and book reviews (I'm hoping to FINALLY post my review of Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources soon).
Anyway, I'll start as I mean to go on with my eleventh film review. My friend Kendra leant this DVD to me (thanks Kendra!) and when I read the back of the box, I was immediately intrigued. In case you don't know, "Paris, Je T'aime" is a film consisting of eighteen short films all on the theme of love in Paris. I was originally going to write a eighteen separate short reviews for each film, but I decided against it as, in my opinion, one of the great things about the film was the fact that at the end of each part, you get excited about what the next part is going to be about.
Another thing I loved about it was that each segment was directed by a different director, so they all had a slightly different feel to them (this was more apparent in some of the more "odd" sections of the film). What I found really interesting was that each director had several guidelines that they had to keep to- each short film had to be around five minutes long and had to be shot in one area of Paris (each mini film is named after the area it was filmed in) in only two days. The fact that the film covered 18 different areas of Paris made me feel like I really knew the city by the end of it, yet at the same time, the fact that it dealt with individual stories in each different area kept it intimate. I've never seen a film before that has managed to do this. It was unique! Also, before I watched it, I expected that it would get boring and that only five minutes wouldn't be long enough for the audience to connect with the characters or for the individual stories to develop. I was wrong, though, each story was filmed so that it was captivating from the very beginning. It baffles me how talented each directer must be to achieve this.
As I said earlier, I'm not going to tell you about every segment of the film (although I will post photos from each part later), however, I will write a little on the parts that made the biggest impression on me.
Firstly, the part entitled "Parc Monceau" was one of my favourites- it was very simple but cleverly filmed and written. At first, it seemed (to me, at least) to be about a young married woman who is tied down by her husband and is having an affair with an older man. They walk down the street in the evening and she complains that if her "husband" wakes up and she's not there, he will be angry. However, it turns out that her "husband" is actually her baby son, who she is leaving with her dad, the older man, in order to go out for the evening with her partner.
There were also three segments that I found really interesting, not necessarily because I enjoyed them the most, but just because the way they were filmed were so different to the others. The first, called "Porte de Choisy" seemed to be about a man trying to sell hair products especially designed for Asian hair (I couldn't say for sure though, it was a bit confusing), the second, called "Quartier de la Madeleine" was about a young man wandering through the streets of Paris at night when he comes across, and falls in love with, a vampire (yes, a vampire). The third was called "Tour Eiffel", and was about two mimes (of course) who meet in prison and fall in love, and who have a strangely normal-looking (and incredibly adorable) little boy.
However, I think the most memorable of all eighteen films was the last one, "14e arrondissement". This was about a middle aged American woman visiting Paris for the first time, on her own. She narrates the film in a bad French accent (we find out that she is reading out something she has written about her trip to her French class), which makes it very personal- you can really feel her pain when she asks a shop assistant (in French) where a good restaurant is, and she replies (in English) "Sure! You like Chinese food?". There's a special feeling to this part of the film- it makes it really quite beautiful. The last few lines of it, I think, summarise the entire film, and the feeling that I have gotten when I've visited Paris in the past:
"Sitting there, alone in a foreign country, far from my job and everyone I know, a feeling came over me. It was like remembering something I'd never known before or had always been waiting for, but I didn't know what. Maybe it was something I'd forgotten or something I've been missing all my life. All I can say is that I felt, at the same time, joy and sadness. But not too much sadness, because I felt alive. Yes, alive. That was the moment I fell in love with Paris. And I felt Paris fall in love with me."
I think I'll end it there. I really hope you watch this, it's brilliant. Overall,
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
I'll put the pictures on another post (I can't seem to fit them on this one!)
Caitlin
