There are some movies which we forget instantly and then are some like Paris Je T'aime, which linger on in our memories. The movie's unique selling point is its 22 directors. Each director has directed a short film (5 min) and all of them have been put together like a collage, the bits melding seamlessly with the whole. Because of the sheer number, one tends to forget a film or two but when reminded of them we instantly remember the story.
Even among all the brilliantly done films, Gurinder Chadha's clip stands out. It depicts a chance interaction between a white, Christian French teenager and a French Muslim girl. The beauty lies in the simplicity with which she shows how easy it is for two communities to exist if there is mutual tolerence and respect on both sides.
My other favourites were the miming couple, a tragi-comedy with a surprising ending, and the story of the Nigerian guy. In the first clip, the oddball pair find each other in a jail and live happily ever after, their story recited by their 10 year old son. The second clip was a story of a Nigerian guy who does odd jobs and dreams of asking a pretty black, French university student out for coffee. He gets knifed trying to chase the woman but she remains unaware till the very end (she doesn't even recognise him till he sings the same song which he used to sing while working at the parking lot where she parked her car). While the lyrics are incomprehensible, the song remains in your consciousness, soft as a spring breeze.
Some of the films also focussed on parent-child relationships, the most poignant being the young mother who leaves her baby at a day care to take care of a rich woman's baby. The scene where she sings the same lullaby to put both children to sleep reminded me of a scene in the old Hindi film "Sujata", where the young mother sings a lullaby (hawa dheere ana) to put both her baby daughter as well as the unwanted, orphan baby to sleep.
The aging couple getting a divorce or once famous film star couple trying to recapture their lost passion or the husband devastated by his wife's death although he was planning to divorce her -- all show different nuances of love.
The film ends with a clip about a middle aged single American woman who comes alone to Paris on a holiday, tries out her French on the natives (who answer back in English) , starts yearning for a companion and ends up falling in love with Paris nonetheless. It left me with a strange feeling -- would I end up like her, a nice but slightly pathetic creature for whom people feel sorry? I don't know why women are the ones who are depicted as these lonely, pathetic creatures who end up yearning for a companion in their middle ages. But I guess some stereotypes are hard to overcome even by the avante garde French directors!
There were some films which were plain incomprehensible -- especially the vampire love story and the Asian salon story -- but they are too few to matter. Watch the film for the sheer brilliance in terms of ideas, humour and poignancy.
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This is the first review of Paris, Je T'aime I happened to have come across, after going though the film, at least some of them, over and over again in the past few days. You see, in my perception, making a short film of 5-7 mins duration is much formidable a challange than to tell a story in the full length format. However, when it comes to short films, an easier option for the director is the flash-back route. The flash-back option allows the director to tell the story with an ease an eloquence that the straight format- linear in time- does not permit.
Think about the 16 films here. In most of these films, which u happen to like (the miming couple; the one with the nigerian guy in it; or the blind boy and the actress)the story-telling format is that of flashback. To tell u the truth they are my favorites too and i have watched them over and over again.
But to narrate a story in linear time and that too in 5-7 mins (i.e. the events take shape within this time frame) is a formidable task. Two films, again my favorites, scores on this. The Gurinder Chadhha one u happen to talk about; and the one with the vampire - u might disagree with me on this, i guess!
you see, overturning stereotypes is not so easy- like the last short with the middle aged chubby woman who is touring paris and breathes heavily with no one to talk to about how she feels. The vampire story triumphantly overturns all stereotypes. Vampires do fall in love, they shed tears for mortal beings, and transforms them into vampires to make love with. In the kissing scene - an ingenuous and imaginative sequence - the vampires kiss as if they are sucking blood. Of course, vampires wont kiss the lipslocked way! And i was stumped.
True, i could not make head or tail out of the Asian salon story!
My personal favorite among all:
the "pimp and prostitute" one- the blind boy and the actress preparing for her audition- fast cuts... like as if u are riding a time machine... the director? One among my loved ones: the talented young german Tom Tywker; his other films: Run Lola Run; Perfume: the story of a murderer.
Keep posting. More on films, i would say.
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