Paris

...if Klapisch hadn't wasted his time on all the plot threads that run through this over-long film. From Karin Viard as the bakery owner with her new helper Sabrina Ouazani, to the overly macho fruit and veg guys (Albert Dupontel, Zinedine Soualem and Gilles Lellouche) with their supermodel day-trippers, there is just too much material for the modest little picture that this really is. Klapisch, I guess, wants to be the Balzac of today's French cinema, and he has much talent--I enjoyed Chacun Cherche son chat and L'Auberge espagnole--but he must be more selective in telling his stories.

I took away from this exercise the performances of Fabrice Luchini, the history prof who decides to go into TV work when the fabulous salary is dangled before his eyes (100,000 euros a year!) and François Cluzet as his harried brother, an architect working on a nightmarish housing development (the computerized promotion film of which is one of the highlights of 2008). Honorable mention to Julie Ferrier as the ex-wife of one of the fruit vendors.

The movie is mostly made of vignettes following several characters, loosely interconnected in the city of Paris. Sounds familiar. To be honest, I've grown tired of the many dramas borrowing that formula. It's become an epidemic, especially since Magnolia. And so, I did not expect to enjoy Paris all that much. But I loved it and it moved me by its stripped down, sincere approach.

Director and writer Cédric Klapisch, unlike several of his contemporaries, did not feel the need to employ convoluted means to link these characters, or end the movie on some sort of unifying, highly artificial bang. Klapish wisely elects to concentrate on building strong characters. He succeeds, so much so that it becomes easy for him to create simple, believable story lines for them. The real link between them? They are fallible, restless, tentative, longing... in other words, they are human.

There's a large cast here and Klepish mostly concentrates on a few of them. Many of the smaller parts are actually as intriguing as the bigger roles and I caught myself wondering what would happen to those characters. But Klapisch stays the course and ends the movie much like it began. A lot is left unresolved, much like life. No Hollywood ending here but I could certainly have followed those characters for another hour if need be.

A beautiful, stripped down story but enough subtext and genuine quality to make for a great and lasting movie experience.

I was really looking forward to see this film for different reasons: The trailer made it look really heart filling, Juliet Binoche and basically because I love French cinema. So I finally got to do so, but man was I disappointed.

It wasn't utterly bad, but basically, for me, it just didn't grab me at any point. Everything and everyone (Each character) seemed so dry, so inexpressive, things would happen and they'd all be like "OH... o.k" and at moments they even seemed to contradict them self's. I don't know, I've seen lots of movies where each characters story is intertwined and some are good, some suck.

I've seen it in American, Italian, French, German and even Spanish cinema, so that kind of story telling is not unique in it self anymore and because of that, it's harder to do it, and I think that in this case, seeing how non of the stories needed the other to exist, none of them really coexisted as one and there fore there was no reason to tell them all in the same piece, well it simply wasn't the best of movies, again it doesn't utterly suck, it just isn't as good as it could have been.

To day I went to see "Paris" and hoped to win a trip to Paris from Sydney out of it! I had seen L'auberge espagnole and had no idea of the link! To top this, by accident I caught a french movie on TV to night perhaps already running for 10 minutes and it was Russian Dolls! Again I did not realise it was related, even called a Sequel to l'auberge espagnole! I enjoyed the 3 movies each on their own way. "Paris", my birth city, I did enjoy immensely, yet I could have imagine its story in any other city. Although it was nice to catch up with sites I have not seen for 25 years and left nearly 40 years ago, but to me it was very much this cocktail of people and their personal situation that moved me so much. Just like everyday life with its humor, sadness and pain all this with a comfortable music that actually did ease a little the pain. Again I thank those who write so well here and gave a concise and very interesting account of this wonderful film. I think one of these writings should appear with the main page of the film rather than tentative account like mine. Bu if by chance you are reading mine I'd like to let you know that if you go to see this movie, just go with the flow and you should not be disappointed.

Being a Parisian myself, and a great fan of all other Klapisch movies, I expected a lot about this one. Well, I was pretty satisfied: although it is no masterpiece, the global atmosphere, and especially the gorgeous views of the city are very well put together. The actors are very convincing too, especially Juliette Binoche, radiant, Luchini, a surprisingly good dancer, and Albert Dupontel. It is just a pity that there are so many simultaneous stories, some of them don't really bring much to the plot and could have been cut, to leave more time to the others.

Anyway, I recommend this movie for all people who want to get a feel for what Paris is all about!