Paris, Je T'aime

Set in the streets of the city of love, Paris, Je T'aime is a film made up of 18 short films by twenty directors (they are, in alphabetical order: Olivier Assayas, Frédéric Auburtin, Emmanuel Benbihy, Gurinder Chadha, Sylvain Chomet, Coen brothers, Isabel Coixet, Wes Craven, Alfonso Cuarón, Gérard Depardieu, Christopher Doyle, Richard LaGravenese, Vincenzo Natali, Alexander Payne, Bruno Podalyd?s, Walter Salles, Oliver Schmitz, Nobuhiro Suwa, Daniela Thomas, Tom Tykwer, Gus Van Sant).

Each short concerns itself with the curiosities of contemporary love, in all its forms. As an anthology of films, of the highest production, we witness that quite astonishing list of directors as they play with that most overlooked artistic medium - the short film.

As a matter of interest it’s worth a look but, as is so often the downfall of such collective ventures (such as New York Stories, Four Rooms), the film as a whole suffers from some shorts being great - others less so.

Standouts include Alexander Payne’s portrait of a middle aged American tourist in search of the romance that Paris implies. A Napoleon Dynamite-esque character traverses the city narrated by her text book, poorly accented French, experiencing the everyday happenings that allows one to fall in love with a city. Typically the Coen brothers and Gus Van Sant produce equally fantastic shorts, showing again their talents manifest in anything they touch.

One failure of the film is an epilogue that tries to tie off to many loose ends. It comes off as too forced. Each short is so stylistically unlike the others that this need not be attempted.

On the whole this is a hard film to get ones teeth into. The five minute stories take a moment to get used to but each one leaves us keen for more. A successful short film should do this, but is ultimately jarring here.

[Reviewed by S.F.]