Paris, J'Taime

[Carol Baynes]

A film with a powerful theme- romantic love and all it's possibilities, filmed and set in arguably the most romantic of all cities. A cliched location perhaps, but it never feels so here. The two hours take us through 18 segments, each helmed by a different director. Some of the names familar to the average cinema goer will be Gus Van Sant, Ethan and Joel Coen, Wes Craven (who delivers the most wonderfully surprising part of all) and Gerard Depardieu. Elsewhere Tom Tykwer directs perhaps the most spitirually and thematically complex segment, beautifully disrupting time and expectations. Isabel Coixet also directs one of the other highlights;"Bastille".
Incidentally, each segment concerns itself with a different district of the French capital.

The mostly French esemble cast also features many American and British performers such as Nick Nolte, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Willem Dafoe, Miranda Richardson, Bob Hoskins, Natalie Portman, Elijah Wood, Steve Bushemi, Marianne Fauthfull and Gena Rowlands. Of the French performers, Juliette Binoche is perhaps the best known, but doesn't play to type. Either way, no one delivers a bad performence. On the contrary, they are all good.

It'd take too long to list and review all 18 stories, but while some are weaker than others, the whole thing is such an engaging experiment it can't help but impress with all the ideas presented. Plus the film as a whole reaffirms ones faith in the possibilities of romance and love; if you needed it reaffirming in the first place. Sometimes bittersweet, and often full of darker truths about ourselves, this is overall a positive and optimistic view of people's lives. Even the cheating husband who decides to look after his dying wife is given a new chance to embrace the deeper meaning of life: "In pretending to be a man in love, he became a man in love".

A wonderfully quirky and sublime collection of small films, I recommend this to just about anybody with a heart and a brain. It won't be found on general release in the UK, more's the pity, because it's a French film and the promotion would probably be half hearted (although, I'd like to think I'd be wrong about that). You can find it screening across the country though- I saw it at Manchester's Cormerhouse. Whichever city you're in, it'll feel like Paris for two hours, or at least the Paris we would like to know.

Go and see it with the one you love, or hell, at least someone you like- Even better, go and see it alone, and it might make you remember that greatest truth; that loving yourself is the most important love of all, from which all other great loves come.
For that message alone, this is a wonderful film.

[Captain Tancredi]

Hmm, doesn't seem to be on at the Hyde Park anytime soon, which is where I'd probably expect it to be on in Leeds.

I really must go back to Paris sometime, though- it's twenty years since I was last there, and my French is too good for me not to. The Tuileries at about 8am on a Saturday morning, when the only people there are recovering from a night's clubbing and catching up with themselves before heading home...that said, the whole romantic reputation puts me off a bit because going alone would feel in a way like so much emotional masturbation. And (he says, vowing not to get caught the same way in Rome this year) boy do I wear myself out anywhere exciting with museums to spend all day exploring, because I trudge around from dawn till dusk and then wonder why I'm shattered.

[Alex]

I'm certainly intrigued by this, mainly because of The Coen Brothers involvement (despite their last couple of films being rather disappointing), Gus Van Sant (though again he's capable of the odd terrible film amongst the gems) and Tom Tykwer (yet another director I've mixed feelings about, I loved Run Lola Run to pieces but found Heaven to be horribly tedious).

I know it's not on locally, but I'm hoping to go up to London next week so might try and catch it then, in a Summer which looks set to be fairly disappointing films wise, I hope I'll enjoy it.