Dir. Christophe Honoré, 2006, France, 92 mins, Subtitles
Cast: Romain Duris, Louis Garrel, Joana Preiss and Guy Marchand
Review by Hemanth Kissoon
“Can I kiss you? It’s a question of life or death.” - Jonathan (Garrel)
Honoré’s last film Ma Mère, with the regal Isabelle Huppert, dealt with oedipal incest and masochism to distinctly uncomfortable effect. Here, he has gone for a more conventional but still ambitious examination of male-female relationships.
The poster for this film is the sole hook needed. On it are just Romain Duris and Louis Garrel. They are two of the most exciting young talents working today (in any language). Duris is still basking in the glow of the sublime The Beat that My Heart Skipped, and Garrel from the sexually adventurous The Dreamers. Charisma just flies off them when they are on the screen and here is no different.
Paul (Duris) has broken up with Anna (Preiss) and is suicidal with grief. After living with Anna in the countryside he is now back in Paris, deep in depression, and moved in with his divorced father (Marchand) and free-spirited younger brother Jonathan. Beginning with Jonathan addressing the audience directly, he tells us this is a story about jumping off a bridge for love – a metaphor perhaps for pride preventing people from opening themselves up. What then unfolds is a dual narrative where the main focus is sibling and parent worried about Paul and their attempts to bring him out of his depression, while that is inter-cut with a look back at the Paul-Anna romance in its last embers, and Jonathan’s on-going adventures around Paris.
“Don’t tell papa. He’ll bitch me out for weeks.” - Paul
Dans Paris deals with the age-old inability of men and women to be on the same page, to understand each other and to share common goals. The feeling would be over-whelmingly pessimistic if it were not for the levity brought by Jonathan’s whimsical charmer and the banter between the brothers, as well as some of the stylistic choices, e.g. having Duris sing along to Kim Wilde’s Cambodia for what seems like the whole song.
Unfortunately, undermining the enjoyment of the film is its occasional lapse into pretentiousness, most notably the exchanges between Paul and Anna discussing their love, as well as the literary allusions which feel a little forced. However, Dans Paris does not offer easy solutions to the uneasy long-term compatibility of men and women. There are suggestions of male self-destructiveness and fragility of ego, and women being far better at navigating relationships. While that is nothing new, at least it is being articulated in an uncommon way.
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