Paris, je t’aime
Autumn 2007 Edge series
Sunday, December 9, 2007 at 4:00pm
Sunday, December 9, 2007 at 7:00pm
Acadia Cinema's Al Whittle Theatre
450 Main Street, Wolfville, NS
Directed by Sylvain Chômet, Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, Alfonso Cuarón, Gus Van Sant, Gérard Depardieu, Tom Tykwer, and Alexander Payne
Starring Bob Hoskins, Elijah Wood, Emily Mortimer, Steve Buscemi, Leonor Watling, Miranda Richardson, Willem Dafoe, Ludivine Sagnier, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Fanny Ardant, Rufus Sewell, Natalie Portman, Gérard Depardieu, Ben Gazzara, Nick Nolte, and Juliette Binoche
Rated 14A ·
2h 0m
Liechtenstein / France
English, Spanish, French, Arabic, and Mandarin
Paris: the City of Light, the City of Love. In 1964, when the French New Wave was at the height of its influence, six of the French New Wave’s most famous directors collaborated on a film about Paris. Paris vu par… included episodes by venerated filmmakers Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol and Eric Rohmer. The short films were very much of their time: innocent black-and-white vignettes of a city that has subsequently witnessed many changes. Now, with Paris, je t’aime, twenty-one filmmakers were asked to focus on the distinctive streets and arrondissements of the City of Light to paint their own portraits.
Paris now belongs to the world and the team of contributors is as cosmopolitan as the city itself. Featuring films by some of the most prominent filmmakers at work today, this portrait of the city is as diverse its creators’ backgrounds and nationalities.
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. As they say, everyone has a story.
A superb host of actors grace these episodes with their larger-than-life personas. Their performances add even deeper resonance to this affectionate love letter to a city that remains one of the jewels of the world. The film captures the transitory mystery and compelling beauty of Paris — and that is, as you can imagine, pretty special.