PARIS
How could I not love a film called Paris since I’m a dyed in the wool francophile. I accept the good and the bad, like there is in any city, I just happen to love Paris a little bit more than most. But Cédric Klapishe’s film isn’t a travelogue - it’s just a story set in the city, or several overlapping and intersecting stories.
The main action revolves around Pierre (Romain Duris), a dancer at the Moulin Rouge who performs in the original, now Las Vegas style stage shows and who discovers he’s going to need a heart transplant. Pierre suddenly sees his world contract, but he gradually begins to take pleasure in looking very closely at the details just outside his window or on the block. He pays more attention, for example, to his regular boulangerie (bread store) and it’s very talkative and judgemental proprietress (Karen Viard) who just can’t seem to find any good help until, to her suprise Khadija (Sabrina Ouazani) walks in.
Pierre also stares into the apartment and fantasizes about the beautiful Laetitia (Mélanie Laurent), a college student who is also the object of the foolish obsession of one of her professors, Roland Verneuil (Fabrice Luchini). Once again Mr. Luchini is called upon to rather pathetically act out an old man’s folly, convincing himself that they can have a relationship. Roland teaches a course about Parisian architectural history, while his brother, Phillipe (François Cluzet) builds apartment complexes and tries to start a family with his wife, Mélanie (Judith El Zein).
Pierre’s sister, Elise (Juliette Binoche) a divorced social worker with three kids decides to move in with her brother and take care of him. Gradually the rough, protective shell she has developed to deal with the day to day miseries of her clients hard softens enough so that she engages in the neighborhood schemes and adventures that Pierre wishes he could. She even finds some companionship amongst a group of market sellers, one of whom has recently separated from his wife.
As far as pulling off the feat of weaving these stories together and pulling them apart, the film is masterful. There is a quintessential Parisian rhythm to it, a of melancholic flow that carries the narrative along like the Seine. One is never bored, one is never wondering how it all fits, or why this character is here, except for perhaps the African immigrant Benôit (Kingley Kum Abang) who doesn’t seem to do much more than pass the other characters, like a shadow, in the streets. And of course that is a fairly accurate assessment of what happens: immigrants are relegated to the outskirts and since this is a film called Paris, they don’t figure in a big way.
Ultimately it does justice to it’s title in that it is a lovely film about several intersecting lives. There is no pressure for it to go anywhere and it doesn’t. Pierre is last seen touring past his favorite places, the great monuments of Paris much the way I, and many of us, do when we must, sadly, say our goodbye.
Paris opens on September 18, 2009.
Written and directed by Cédric Klapisch; produced by Bruno Levy; Director of Photography, Christophe Beaucarne; edited by Francine Sandberg; music by Loïk Dury. Released by IFC Films. Running time: 124 minutes.
With: Juliette Binoche (Elise); Romain Duris (Pierre); Fabrice Luchini (Roland Verneuil); Albert Dupentel (Jean); François Cluzet (Phillipe Verneuil) Karin Viard (The Baker); Gilles Lellouche (Franky); Mélanie Laurent (Laetitia); and Zinedine Soualem (Mourad.)
