Paris Je T'aime

Paris, Je T'aime is a 2006 film starring an ensemble cast of actors of various nationalities including American, British and French. The title translates as "Paris, I love you".

The two-hour film consists of eighteen short films set in different arrondissements. The 21 directors include Gurinder Chadha (Indian-British), Sylvain Chomet (French), Joel and Ethan Coen (American), Wes Craven (American), Alfonso Cuarón (Mexican), Nobuhiro Suwa (Japanese), Alexander Payne, Tom Tykwer (German), Walter Salles (Brazillian), Gus Van Sant (American) and a movie director most known to me for his work in Hong Kong, Christopher Doyle (Australia).

As luck has it, I got to see the movie at 1 Utama yesterday as it was shown as a part of the French Art Festival. Just so happens, that yesterday was also the premiere night for the movie adaptation of C. S. Lewis' Prince Caspian and I only just found out that mobile phones are not allowed into the cinemas for premiere nights. The lengths we have to go to stamp out piracy.

The movie started with music and an intro that looks like TVs being arranged in the shop windows during the heydays of CRT TVs in a 4 by 4 formation. Each TV showing a clip of one of the shorts, and then the stories begin.

My favourite story is one of a little boy telling the story of how his parents met called Tour Eiffel shot in the VIIe arrondissement, it was written and directed by French animator Sylvain Chomet. The boy, asked by a reporter (I think, since the person was never shown) tells how his parents, both mime artists (Paul Putner and Yolande Moreau), meet in prison and fall in love. I loved this for the sequence in which the boy's dad was shown waking up and opening the window for the fresh air and he sees Eiffel Tower out his 'window', which was of course a poster.

The best though, was how throughout the short, Dad was shown 'driving' a car, the sound that he made for starting, braking etc were excellent! The mimes throughout his day were also very funny but of course got him thrown in jail, where he met the mother. Both dressed in similar get-ups...and they end up 'driving' home together... awww...

A gem I found is Quais de Seine shot at the Ve arrondissement by the husband-and-wife team of American screenwriter Paul Mayeda Berges and Indian-British director Gurinder Chadha. Where a young man (Cyril Descours) is shown hanging out with two friends who taunt all women who walk by making rude statements and lewd calls, strikes up a friendship with a young Muslim woman (Leïla Bekhti) who was sitting nearby and tripped as she was leaving. He ends up waiting for her outside the mosque where she said she was heading to and strikes up a conversation with her and her grandfather as they were leaving. The golden moment was when the grandfather invites him to walk with them if he was heading in the same direction. It made me wonder, if I would ever see this scene happening here in Malaysia. The understanding and the acceptance shown was so unconditional that it just touched my heart.

Reasons I love the movie include the diversity not only in characters but also diversity in the sense that all kinds of people were featured, including gays and the disabled (Faubourg Saint-Denis). There were people who were just getting married, about to get divorced, old couples trying to rekindle their romance, even Vampires (Quartier de la Madeleine).There were people from all walks of life including single mothers (Loin du 16e), tourists (Tuileries and 14e arrondissement), actress and paramedics.

Having shot in so many different arrondissements meant that many different parts of Paris were featured, including the Latin Quarters, Chinatown, Seine, Montmartre, and even the Grave of Oscar Wilde (and an apparition of him).

The movie also had many shots of Paris in between the shorts showing Paris with its low buildings (which just makes the Eiffel Tower stands out ever more) when you look at her. It is not a gloriously new and modern looking city but instead an aging beauty, but will it age as nicely as the best of London's various districts? For the city shows signs of neglect by its inhabitants to the conservation of buildings...