A
mini-festival Produced by
Claudie Ossard and Emmanuel Benbihy
Rating: (5)
ERIC'S STAR RATING
Review:
Paris Je T'aime
All
cities are great. Even Cleveland and Brussels have something to
recommend them. But some cities are greater than most and one of
these very few, is Paris.
Ah, Paris! How does one present this schmorgasbord of a city in
all its glory? That was the question Tristan Carné asked himself
back at the beginning of the decade. But of course!, he thought,
why not invite a famous filmmaker, no dozens of famous
filmmakers, who don't live there, to each make a short film that
takes place in one of Gay Paree's twenty districts and sting
them together and make a portrait of one of the top three cities
on the planet with new eyes.
For indeed, Parisians may be as patriotic as New Yorkers,
Liverpudlieans or Berliners, but you can't fall in love with a
city you've lived in all your life for the first time,
especially when you spend most of the time getting on with your
life.
So Carné managed to wangle Olivier Assayas, Frédéric Auburtin &
Gérard Depardieu, Gurinder Chadha, Sylvain Chomet, Joel & Ethan
Coen, Isabel Coixet, Wes Craven, Alfonso Cuarón, Christopher
Doyle, Richard LaGravenese, Vincenzo Natali, Alexander Payne,
Bruno Podalydès, Walter Salles & Daniela Thomas, Oliver Schmitz,
Nobuhiro Suwa, Tom Tykwer and Gus Van Sant, plus a couple of
other directors who's segments were dumped before the film was
completed, to contribute to as thorough a tour of the City of
Lights as one is going to get in a single night at the movies.
So with 19 directors and a principle cast of at least twice that
many, one would expect a very mixed bag, and that's indeed the
case. We've got every conceivable style of filmmaking exhibited,
from heavy drama, to live action cartoons. Vampires, mimes,
cowboys from the great beyond, life death, youth, old age and of
course, love love love. Everything but the McDonald's at the
Champs Elysee, and that was probably one of the two segments
dumped.
The acting is uniformly great, the directors managed to lure
some of the best people in Hollywood and New York for this
project. (Hey a couple of day's work, in exchange for a free
trip to Paris, who wouldn't?). It doesn't matter whether or not
you like the French, this is a film for people who love film,
and you can tell who's style is what. This is the film to see
this weekend!
Eric Lurio
Richard E. Schiff
Richard E. Schiff
Richard E. Schiff
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Richard E. Schiff Richard E. Schiff
Richard E. Schiff
All
cities are great. Even Cleveland and Brussels have something to
recommend them. But some cities are greater than most and one of
these very few, is Paris. 
