Paris [15]

This latest film by Klapisch (his best known previous effort is 'The Spanish Apartment') draws a careful portrait of three Parisians at turning points in their lives.

Pierre (Duris) is a dancer who is now suffering from a debilitating heart condition, and may not have long to live. At the beginning of the film he gives the bad news to his sister Élise (Binoche), who promptly moves into his apartment to look after him. Her two young children will later be shamelessly exploited by the film for their inherent cuteness.

A separate narrative introduces Roland (Luchini), a prestigious history professor whose father has just died. He seems unaffected by the loss, and carries on in his cranky obsessions with Parisian history - but soon we will find that he has been more deeply moved than he likes to admit.

Besides these main characters, the film also gives some attention to a string of other characters: co-workers, family members, people from the neighbourhood. The ensemble acting is superb throughout, so that even the minor characters are both believable and interesting.

The idea of a film weaving together the stories of multiple characters who are connected only by the city they live in may not sound like anything new - but it seems to be a fertile framework for cinematic ponderings on the human condition. 'Paris' draws the strings together by focussing on death, sex, loss and passing. This may sound grim, but the film is surprisingly funny (the middle-aged Roland dancing to old rock'n'roll records is absolute gold).

With such heavy, heart-wrenching themes at hand, Klapisch does an admirable job, for the most part, of avoiding maudlin or sentimental moments. But above all, it is the performances by the three main actors that make this film engaging rather than pretentious.

John Mansfield (Unverified), 11/09/08

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Itching though I am to draw a relational diagram, let’s just say this film is complicated, and revels in said complexity.

Director Cédric Klapisch makes a reasonable performance of teasing out a plethora of scenes, themes, stories and characters: social worker Juliet Binoche; her professional dancer brother nursing a failing heart (the delicious Romain Duris) whose invalided vicariousness generates a window on to a host of others including one relentlessly bigoted boulangerie owner – not from Belgium –; one siren who is bedded by one history professor with a midlife crisis; his architect brother plus an abrasion (what is correct collective noun?) of market stall holders, one of whose daughters goes to school with the social worker’s daughter, whose little brother etc…

Broadly speaking, the film resembles a lightly grilled frog’s leg in its typically French eccentricity: namely tears, laughter, and a reassuring confirmation that life is, especially in Paris, a bit poo. In fact phrases including the word “merde” are found peppered liberally, and with infinite grammatical variety, throughout the script.

Indeed navel gazers will rejoice in the Gallic melancholy of it all with a strong “ugliness of beauty” theme, which is aided by the Matrix-style baggy jumper fixation of the costume designers.

But while some may be tempted to fall to their knees crying “Ah the humanity!” in an ecstasy of sated introversion, may I suggest also viewing this film for the largely enjoyable snapshots created (check out in particular Maurice Benichou as "le psy", the professor’s excitable reaction to rock, or a classic shoulder shrug moment from Duris as he languishes in a taxi), rather than any great overarching wisdom proferred.

One seemingly unconvincing theme was the improbably high success rate of bristly, or love-handled, or wizened, or pot-bellied male propositions to sinuous, lissome, china-dolled females. Though in a Phoenix audience of demographically similar males, the overall effect generated was a distinctly fruity atmosphere post lights up. One twinkly older gentleman chivalrously held the door for me on the way out; my thanks was, on later reflection, perhaps overly effusive. Such perversity, they say, Paris invites.

Thundersatchel (Unverified), 07/08/08

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