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In PARIS, JE T'AIME, celebrated directors from around the world, including the Coen Brothers, Gus Van Sant, Gurinder Chadha, Wes Craven, Walter Salles, Alexander Payne and Olivier Assayas, have come together to portray Paris in a way never before imagined. Made by a team of contributors as cosmopolitan as the city itself, this portrait of the city is as diverse as its creators' backgrounds and nationalities. With each director telling the story of an unusual encounter in oe of the city's neighborhoods, the vignettes go beyond the 'postcard' view of Paris to portray aspects of the city rarely seen on the big screen. Racial tensions stand next to paranoid visions of the city seen from the perspective of an American tourist. A young foreign worker moves from her own domestic situation into her employer's bourgeois environs. An American starlet finds escape as she is shooting a movie. A man is torn between his wife and his lover. A young man working in a print shop sees and desires another young man. A father grapples with his complex relationship with his daughter. A couple tries to add spice to their sex life. These are but a few of the witty and serendipitous narratives that make up PARIS, JE T'AIME. (official distributor synopsis)
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Reviews (10)
The good thing about this film is that you (hopefully) can't say you didn't like the whole thing, but only certain stories. I found significant flaws in the first half, it picked up in the second half. The best stories were: the ones with Miranda Richardson, Juliette Binoche, the one with the Muslim woman and the one with the postwoman. On the other hand, the weakest were: with Steve Buscemi and Nick Nolte. As for the music and the beautiful setting of Paris, it was exquisite. Averaging it all out, I come up with about less than 70% (maybe I'll add more after another viewing).
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I don’t think it would be right to call this a film. It was more of a collection of shorts on the same theme, and I didn’t exactly fit the target audience, I’m afraid. Most of the shorts didn't really appeal to me and I even found some of them boring. There were a few exceptions (namely four) that resonated with me. Oddly enough, they were those I would least expect to relate to. I should also point out that while I strongly disagree with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, I'm not going to change my opinion of Olga Kurylenko's acting skills. I haven't become a fan of hers, thus clearly demonstrating my boorishness and inability to recognize real art even if it spat in my face. I guess that's just the way I am. / Lesson learned: Feel like hanging out with famous artists in the quiet of a cemetery? Go to Paris.
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A film filled to the brim with my most beloved city and full of different approaches to love, romance, and especially Paris. And it is precisely in the alternating styles and moods that the film has both its greatest strength and its greatest weakness. While I was shaking my head at Christopher Doyle's patchwork or at why Alfonso Cuarón's piece is only interesting because it is shot in one continuous take, others would not stomach what I consider the best stories. The tenderness and cuteness of Gurinder Chadha's romantic bonding, the perfectly fitting dark humor of Joel and Ethan Coen, the heartrending sincerity of Nobuhiro Suwa and the perfect Juliette Binoche, the fascinating outer-worldly imagination of Sylvain Chomet, and Tom Tykwer's visual study of love, relationships, differences, and problems. Some pieces of this bonbon did not suit my tastes, so the film as a whole will not receive the highest rating, but not only this group of names will remain in me forever. Beyond any assessable boundaries.
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In these types of anthology films, which are directed by several different directors, the most common problem is the different quality of individual stories. In the case of Paris, I Love You, this critical point is even stronger because there was a whole army of directors and the space for their expression was therefore very limited. Not everyone was able to create a meaningful story with a point in such a small space. Some creators did not offer the viewer more information about their characters than what they could learn from the presented photograph. Several of the stories were really nice, whether they were filmed anecdotes like vampire stories or the story of the unfortunate Steve Buscemi, who was properly tormented by his friend Joel Coen. The strength of the film is definitely the cast, which is luxurious, but it is a pity that the individual actors did not have the opportunity to show more in their performances. The only thing that connects this chaos of micro-stories is Paris, but even that does not play the main role because most of the stories could take place almost anywhere. Overall impression: 65%.
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I would rate the individual etudes differently. The absolute number one for me was Arrondissement 10, when the blind boy tells Natalie Portman: "I can see you". And I must also mention Arrondissement 7, Tour Eiffel, the boy with the big briefcase and his parents the mimes. Next, story number 7 appealed to me, which was about a man who wants to break up with his wife because of a young stewardess and the fact that the wife sings the same song over and over, wears the same clothes, has lipsticks she doesn't use, doesn't order appetizers and desserts, and ends up eating the husband's entire meal...and what's more, the husband is to the point where he even orders meals that the wife will like. But when his wife tells him she is sick, he doesn't break up with her and leaves the stewardess. He pretends to love his wife until he falls head over heels in love with her again... she dies and he is alone... On the other hand, I would leave out the soulless beginning, i.e. Arrondissement 18, which was rather awkward. The rest was average or above average... anyway I will think about it. Nice work.
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