Paris Je T'aime

Paris Je T'aime is an anthology of short film love letters to Paris. Each of the film's 18 shorts deals with love with Paris as a setting. Some of the world's premiere directors filmed a short for the anthology including the Coen Brothers (Fargo, O Brother Where Art Thou), Alfonso Cuaron (Children of Men, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban), Gus Van Sant (Good Will Hunting, Elephant), and Alexander Payne (Sideways, Election).

Each of the short films is only about five or six minutes (and seem shorter), so I had difficulty at first because I spent such little time with characters before the next story would begin. I began to feel at ease when some of the directors took special care when constructing their stories with beginning, middles, and ends in a more traditional sense.

I felt a wide range of emotions while watching the short films. For the most part, I felt truly satisfied by each segment, though some were much more successful than others.

I liked how the films were able to take an idea like love in Paris and stretch it more than just falling into romantic love. Some people narrowly missed love, lost it, or lost it and then regained it. There was also familial love, love for life, and love for Paris itself.

I was impressed how well some of the directors told their stories. I was continually amazed by how many films were able to surprise me in such a short amount of time. Just when I thought their narratives were going in one direction, they zig-zagged a different way.

Some of my favorite segments were Faubourg Saint-Denis by Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run) about a blind man's recollection of fleeting love found quickly again, Quartier de la Madeleine by Vincenzo Natali about a giving of self for love for a vampire, and Place des Fêtes by Oliver Schmitz about a dying man making one last attempt to charm a beautiful woman who has eluded him.

Not all the films are good. I did not take to Porte de Choisy by Christopher Doyle about a salon products representatives dream hair appointment, or Parc Monceau by Alfonso Cuaron about a father and his daughter talking about old habits and new trials. Neither film handles the time frame well. Porte de Choisy tries to fit too much all at once into its tiny run time, and Parc Monceau does not do enough with its run time.

That proved to be the deciding factor in determining the quality of the segments - How well did they entertain or captivate their audience in the amount of time they had? How did they structure their shorts? What were they trying to do, and did they accomplish that?

More often than not, Paris Je T'aime sweetly and sometimes sadly told short stories that will last much longer in my memory.

***1/2