Film: Paris Je T’Aime
Release date: 4th February 2008
Certificate: 15
Running time: 115 mins
Director: Gus Van Sant, Isabel Coixet, Wes Craven, Christopher Doyle & Vincenzo Natali
Starring: Steve Buscemi, Natalie Portman, Gerard Depardieu, Bob Hoskins, Nick Nolte
Genre: Drama/Romance
Studio: Universal
Format: DVD
Country: France/Liechtenstein/Switzerland
Paris, the city of love; and what better a location to typify love in all its splendour? But just how profound can ‘love’ be? How many different kinds of love can you count on your hand? Hard, isn’t it? This is where Oliver Assayas and Frederic Auburtin step up with Paris Je T’Aime; exemplifying all the forms of love humankind has forgotten in the hype of love being all-good, using a cohesive intensity of “stories of love, from the city of love.”
Try not to be fooled by the title – translated to Paris, I Love You - which would mislead the hopeless romantic into believing they were about to view a tale of happy-ever-after romance from the passion capital, and although this is not entirely untrue, there are other surprises in store structured around love at its best, its worst, and it’s most downright bizarre!
Paris Je T’Aime takes an innovative approach to screening the model love story - by showing the good, the bad and the ugly sides in all types of dealings. Originality is the key - this film doesn’t merely account for the soppy saga of a male and a female, and their romantic journey and fruitful encounters, but does, using eighteen short pictures produced collectively akin to a slideshow, portray eighteen mini fables of how love can take on many forms – ones often overlooked.
Each one of the five minute long shorts were put in place formerly to represent the districts of Paris, and each shot therefore is named after said administrative districts, or “arrondissements” to be precise, of the city. Although, the eighteen short films, each directed by twenty-two separate administrators, are screened collectively without any headings, nor any specified introductory or ending clarification - so focus is required to ensure full perspective is gained…
The film begins with the first short set in Montmarte where we watch as an obviously lonely man believes his luck could be in a positive transition when a woman suffering from low blood sugar levels collapses outside his car where he attends to her and they appear to hit it off immediately.
However, this optimistic short is not an example of a pattern to follow, as screened subsequently are tales of love and the possibility of it, love in its peak form, dying love, and love that has already been lost. Not only focussing upon the everyday granted relationships, the film explores homosexual relationships and the relationship between divorcees, between father and daughter, between employees and employers, between strangers on the street, between a mother and a baby, between married couples, between a grieving mother and her deceased son, between fiancés, between an actress and her drug addiction/dealer, between a blind boy and his girlfriend and, also, peculiarly, between a vampire and her prey-turned-lover!
Praise must go to the opening sequence where Paris in all its wonder and exquisiteness is shot skilfully using artistic cinematography, including awe inducing long shots of the city by day and night. Slow sweeping scans hypnotise and have the ability to make us fall in love with the charming Paris, echoing the title immediately. This captivating scene further enhances our lust for Paris, as fireworks appear onscreen alongside the great Eiffel Tower, accompanied by fairytale Cinderella-style melodies. One begins the movie adoring Paris, and ends feeling still in love but sceptical of what that love truly means and its level of sanctuary.
It would appear, as there are numerous varying characters throughout, many of whom are Hollywood big timers, including Maggie Gyllenhaal and Elijah Wood, that the city is the uniting protagonist of the show. As well as a star-studded cast, which also features the more established Gena Rowlands and Bob Hoskins, the films represent various nationalities including British, French and American. Yet, this cast of Hollywood elites and diverse representations don’t exactly improve on the show’s prominence as much as they conceivably should and perchance the main flaw with the production - the mise-en-scene is overcrowded; making for claustrophobic viewing.
The entire film is innovative and, at times, truly gripping, however, it would seem rather than the good shorts out shining and thus cancelling out the bad shorts, the ghastly drag the superior down. Even so, the unison of sensations experienced whilst watching range from cheerfulness to wretchedness, from jolt to wonder, and from perceptivity to total perplexity, so commendation should be given to the twenty-two directors for making this occur.
Each short reeks of individualism and distinction from the next, making for a fine watch. If you enjoy array in a movie and tiny segments of stories rather than an extensive drawn-out single narrative then you’ll care very much for Paris Je T’Aime and will declare the title with a personal sentiment.
Paris, Je T'Aime will have you smiling and perhaps crying, and is certainly uplifting, but mostly you’ll be left with a mood that is not just unsatisfactory but aptly uncertain and uneasy. It’s like the French take on British classic Love Actually - although, not quite as good, actually. VMF
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