Paris, Je T'Aime (Paris, I Love You)
by Alexander Payne, Wes Craven, Gus Van Sant, Tom Tykwer, Vincenzo Natali
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Catalina Sandino Moreno, Elijah Wood, Juliette Binoche, Natalie Portman, Steve BuscemiDirector: Alexander Payne, Gus Van Sant, Tom Tykwer, Vincenzo Natali, Wes Craven
Brand: Paris
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0; French (Original Language)
Format: Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.66:1
Running Time: 120 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-11-13
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: First Look Pictures
Movie Reviews of Paris, Je T'Aime (Paris, I Love You)
Movie Review: wildly uneven but can't beat the location
Summary: 3 Stars
If you just can't find the time to take that annual trip to France this year, you at least have "Paris, Je T'Aime," a cinematic love letter to the City of Enchantment, to get you there and back in just a few short hours. This is a compilation of eighteen very short films (most under six minutes in length), each crafted around the theme of love (this is France, after all!) and each set in its own unique quarter of the city. Each piece has also been helmed by a different director, some of them quite well-known even to American audiences: Gus Van Sant, Wes Craven, Joel and Ethan Coen, Alexander Payne, and Alfonso Cuaron, among others. Of the actors, the most readily recognizable are Steve Buscemi, Juliette Binoche, Miranda Richardson, Willem Dafoe, Nick Nolte, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Bob Hoskins, Emily Mortimer, Rufus Sewell, Natalie Portman, Ben Gazzara, Gena Rowlands and Gerard Depardieu, who not only appears in but also helped to direct the next-to-the-last segment.
As with most such works, "Paris, Je T'Aime" turns out to be something of a hit-and-miss proposition overall, with the episodes ranging in quality from the clever and touching to the precious and banal. The inherent weakness in this approach to storytelling is that the extreme brevity of the tales doesn't allow us to develop much of a rooting interest in either the characters or the various dilemmas they are facing before we are hustled off to another, equally underdeveloped, batch. Still, given its obvious limitations, the movie is moderately entertaining on a superficial level and it does give us a chance to spend a couple of hours touring the streets and neighborhoods of one of the world`s most magical cities, all for the unbelievably low price of a movie ticket or rental fee - though it must be stated right up front that an overall graininess in the picture fails to do justice to the stunning locales.
And, frankly, where else are you going to see Frodo (Elijah Wood) having his throat ripped open by a sexy vampire?
Summary of Paris, Je T'Aime (Paris, I Love You)
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.Even with the impressive talent involved, Paris, je t'aime could've ended up like a fallen souffl?. Though all 18 films aren't equally successful, they hit the mark more often than not. Romantics anticipating happy love stories set amongst the City of Lights may be disappointed to find that many are quite sad and that some parts of Paris are less inviting than others (each takes place in a different district). Further, the shorts aren't all en Fran?ais, since the actors and directors hail from around the world, but their outsider perspectives lend the project depth. The strongest entries are provided by Gurinder Chadha (Quais De Seine), Gus Van Sant (Le Marais), Oliver Schmitz (Place des F?tes), and Alexander Payne (14?me Arrondissement), but all find interesting ways to explore cultural misunderstandings. In Joel and Ethan Coen's tragic-comic Tuileries, tourist Steve Buscemi angers a couple simply by making eye contact. Like Miranda Richardson in Isabelle Coixet's heartbreaking Bastille, he does all his acting with his expressive face. And while Maggie Gyllenhaal speaks the language adroitly in Olivier Assayas's intriguing Quartier des Enfants Rouges, Nick Nolte (purposefully) mangles it in Alfonso Cuar?n's surprisingly weak Parc Monceau. The anthology ends with Payne's audio-postcard, in which Margo Martindale's postal carrier narrates her vacation in awkward, but endearing French. Instead of another person, she falls in love with Paris, simply for allowing her to be herself. It's the perfect finish to a poignant repast, like strawberries dipped in chocolate--sweet, but not cloyingly so. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
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