Dirs. Joel and Ethan Cohen, Gurinder Chadha, Alfonso Cuarón, Tom Tykwer, Wes Craven, Walter Salles, Alexander Payne, Sylvain Chomet, etc, Liechtenstein / Switzerland / Germany / France, 2006, 121 mins, mostly subtitles
Cast: Steve Buscemi, Nick Nolte, Gena Rowlands, Fanny Ardant, Marianne Faithfull, Willem Dafoe, Juliet Binoche, Miranda Richardson, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Nick Nolte, Ben Gazzara, et al
Review by Carol Allen
If you happen to be interested in making short films, this widely varied collection of short stories set in Paris is a bit of a master class in the art. The project was the brain child of a young French television director called Tristan Carné for a feature made up of short films by directors from around the world, each celebrating one of Paris's arrondissements. The result is a kaleidoscope of different viewpoints on the city, its people and its visitors, which moves from realism to fantasy to romance, comedy and tragedy.
The first to sign on were the Coen brothers, who decided to set their contribution in the Tuileries Metro station in case it rained! Predictably it's a trademark dark comedy featuring regular Steve Buscemi as a tourist who learns a hard lesson about not staring at people in the Metro. British Asian director Gurinder Chadha contributes a charming tale set in the Quais de Seine about a young French boy attracted to a Muslim girl, who teaches him about her culture. German Oliver Schmitz is the only director to include Paris's very visible African population in a poignant tragedy about an immigrant from Lagos who is stabbed in the street.
Carné not only recruited some top directors but they also cast some pretty impressive acting talent. Alfonso Cuarón, for example, putting an original twist on the older man/younger woman situation with Nick Nolte and Ludivine Sagnier. New Yorker Richard LaGravenese presents a very Parisian theme about a middle aged couple (Bob Hoskins and Fanny Ardant) trying to rekindle their love. There's a stylish little vampire tale from Canadian Vincenzo Natali, featuring Elijah Wood and an offbeat story from Wes Craven featuring Emily Mortimer and Rufus Sewell as an English couple visiting Oscar Wilde's grave - one the few times in the film that English is spoken. Gena Rowlands and Ben Gazarra play a divorcing American couple having a farewell drink in a Latin Quarter bar, directed by Gérard Depardieu and Frédéric Auburtin and there's a breathtakingly whirlwind trip through a love affair start to finish between Natalie Portman and Melchior Beslon as her blind boyfriend, which is directed by Tom Tykwer.
The mini movies are inevitably of variable quality. Sylvain Chomet's film about a lonely mime annoying people near the Eiffel Tower is a bit - well, annoying, and Olivier Assayas's story about an American film actress (Maggie Gyllenhaal) trying to buy drugs while on location in Paris falls a bit flat. The films are largely in French, sometimes comically American accented, particularly the final contribution from Alexander Payne, a touching tragi-comedy in which a lonely American woman (Margo Martindale), who has been learning the language in anticipation of her dream Paris vacation, reflects in her clumsy French on her lonely life and the beauty of Paris.
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