Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
2007: in a year of bad films, suddenly is 18 good films in one...., 3 Nov 2007
I really can't recommend this collection of shorts highly enough! I think the previous reviewer did a great job of outlining the nature of the material, I would only echo the thoughts regarding quality of direction, the beauty of the cinematography, impressive acting and tight scripting. I'd also agree that there are maybe 2 duds in there, but out of 18, that's not bad going. Amongst the most poignant I found Oliver Schmidt's Place des Fetes moving to the point of tears, and Tour Eiffel by Sylain Chomet would bring an indecent smile to even the most po-faced individual. Therein lies the beauty of the film, like the city in which it is framed, it has the ability to elicit the full gamut of human emotions through its sheer beauty. A wonderful collection, I see that they are planning the release to coincide just before Valentine's Day, and whilst that might be a cynical commercialisation of the concept of love, these films certainly are not.
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42 of 45 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Je t'aime, 29 Aug 2007
Paris is a city of light, lovers, art and beauty. And "Paris, Je T'aime" explores all the sides of the city in in eighteen brief fiolms, all set in various arrondissements of Paris, and directed by some brilliantly underrated directors. And they seem to be about love -- often it's a person, but each one is also an ode to Paris itself.
A somewhat lonely Denver mailwoman (Margo Martindale) makes her first trip to Paris, and recounts how "I fell in love with Paris, and Paris fell in love with me." A mime spreads colour and mischief on his way to love. Two strangers fall in love in a bar. A medic learns that a dying man is in love with her, and seeking her out inadvertantly led to his death at the hands of a racist gang.
A young boy leaves his misogynistic pals behind, to seek love with a young Muslim girl. A pair of British people visit the tomb of Oscar Wilde in Pere-Lachaise, an American actress falls for her drug dealer, and a young nanny's dismal living conditions are a stark contrast to that of the people she works for. All these -- and more -- are intertwined gently in the finale.
But two stand out especially. Tom Tykwer's includes a young blind man (Melchior Beslon) receiving a call from his American actress girlfriend (Natalie Portman). She tells him, "Our spring was wonderful but summer is over now and we missed out on autumn... our love fell asleep, and the snow took it by surprise." In his sorrow, he thinks back to how they met, and how their relationship continued... and gets a surprise.
And Vincenzo Natali turns in a bloody, gothic love story. A young American tourist (Elijah Wood) is walking alone at night, when he steps in a pool of blood. He follows the blood to where a beautiful vampire (Olga Kurylenko) is slurping someone to death -- only to have a sudden attraction bloom up between them. When he has a fall, what will happen?
"Paris Je T'aime" has it all -- comedy, tragedy, romance, racial tension, religion, vampires, sunlit vacations, glamour and cliches. Okay, there's the occasional dud -- "Tuileries," about an American tourist by the Coen Bros., is just lame. But since all the directors are given only about five minutes, most of them are tiny, polished gems without any extraneous material.
Natali's is colourless (except for blood) and eerie, Gurinder Chadha's is shyly sweet and sunny, Richard LaGravenese's is adorable, Craven's is syrupy, and Tykwer's is a delicate web of camera tricks and blurred glimpses. Sylvain Chomet even charms us with mimes zooming through the streets. And each brings another dimension of Paris to life, from lush green parks to bars to the Eiffel Tower itself.
And the acting is just as great -- the great Juliette Binoche, Seydou Boro, Catalina Moreno, Marianne Faithfull, Fanny Ardant, Gérard Depardieu, and the adorable Melchior Beslon. Martindale deserves special praise for her sweetly realistic portrayal of an American tourist, and Portman is brilliantly vibrant as a girl who yells a lot. And Elijah Wood turns out a brilliant performance in total silence, managing to convey fear, mischief, eroticism and love.
"Paris Je T'aime" is a collection of little gems, with the occasional dull pebble thrown in -- brilliant directors, emotionally charged stories, and great acting. Enchanté!
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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
We'll Always have Paris, 24 Nov 2007
Directed by a slew of the very best directors (Alfonso Cuaron, The Coen Brothers, Gus Van Sant, Alexander Payne to name a few), "Paris Je t'aime" is a mixed bag of short vignettes about the who's, the why's and the wherefore's of love set in the City of Love: Paris.
As is usually the case in this type of enterprise, the directors with the best scripts and the best technique and vision come off the best. The amazing thing is that producers Emmanuel Benbihy and Claudie Ossard have double-handedly breathed new life in what was thought of as a pretty much dead, at least in its commercial art form entity
...the short film, by assembling 18 films made by 21 directors.
In one of the best and most effective and affecting, "Bastille," a man (Sergio Castellito) on the verge of leaving his wife (Miranda Richardson) for his mistress learns that the wife is terminally ill and decides to stay with her. The main character's wall-to-wall stream-of-consciousness takes us through the whole story in voice-over: "by acting like I was in love, I fell in love with my wife again."
In "14ème Arrondissement," directed by Alexander Payne, a middle-aged American mail carrier from Denver, who diligently studied French as she prepared for the trip of a lifetime to Paris, walks around the city sharing her impressions in voice-over. She talks about her lonely life, the beautiful scenery, her happiness at being in Paris but her sadness at having to experience it alone. But, sitting in a Paris park one day she experiences a sudden epiphany: a life affirming and life changing epiphany that she will without a doubt take home with her to Denver.
Acting-wise, along with those mentioned above, Ben Gazzara, Gena Rowlands, Gaspard Ulliel, Juliette Binoche, Steve Buscemi, and Fanny Ardant...organic, deeply committed actors all make the very best of their short but sweet appearances.
Like its literary twin, the short story, the short film has very little time to make an impression and impact and though there are a couple of miss-steps presented here, "Paris Je T'aime" is as a whole a very beautiful, very cohesive, effective and blissfully thoughtful film.
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