Paris, Je T'aime

This collection of eighteen short subjects, each filmed in the city of love, offers moviegoers the unique experience of a miniature Cannes Film Festival. While conveying the atmosphere of France, these shorts allow audiences to view the same town from the different cultural perspectives of eighteen directors who are celebrated worldwide (or at least at Cannes—where this film premiered in 2006).

While Paris, Je T’aime is billed as a giddy romance, many of its segments are more emotionally complex than that. Nobuhiro Suwa’s Place des Victoires offers a heartbreaking performance from Juliette Binoche as a mother grieving the loss of her son. In Loin du 16eme, co-director Walter Salles (whose short film stole the show in To Each His Own Cinema) simply observes Catalina Sandino Moreno gently singing lullabies to newborn babies. Gus Van Sant’s deceptively simple Le Marais depicts a chance encounter that builds to a delightful twist.

Some films, such as Isabel Coixet’s enchanting Bastille and Tom Tykwer’s breathtaking Faubourg Saint-Denis, successfully summarize entire relationships within the span of their brief running time. Others reflect affectionately on the nostalgia of past relationships, as in Richard LaGravenese’s amusing Pigalle, and co-director Gerard Depardieu’s Quartier Latin, which arranges the glorious onscreen reunion of Ben Gazzara and Gena Rowlands. In one brilliant shot, Alfonso Cuaron’s Parc Monceau beautifully paints the relationship between a father and daughter.

Following up Vincenzo Natali’s morbidly dazzling Quartier de la Madeleine (in which Elijah Wood falls for a ghostly vampire), Wes Craven surprises his horror fans by offering one of the film’s few pure romantic comedies (Pere-Lachaise)—set in a graveyard no less. Bend it Like Beckham director Gurinder Chadha once again follows an Indian girl finding love in Quais de Seine, a lovely work despite its obvious conventionality.

Some segments fail to work on any level, such as master cinematographer Christopher Doyle’s awkwardly bizarre Porte de Choisy. After directing one of the low-points of this year’s Cannes Festival (the atrocious Boarding Gate), Olivier Assayas delivers another dud with the hopelessly dull Quartier des Enfants Rouges, wasting the talent of star Maggie Gyllenhaal, while further displaying his obsession with the aimless lives of drug addicts. And there isn’t really anything wrong with Bruno Podalydes’s opener Montmarte, except that it’s instantly forgettable.

On the flip side, Oliver Schmitz’s Place des Fetes memorably depicts how a romantic chance encounter leads to a tragic downward spiral. And what would a film festival about France be without mimes, as Triplets of Belleville director Sylvain Chomet’s Tour Eiffel so hilariously proves? Even funnier is Joel and Ethan Coen’s Tuileries, with Steve Buscemi wordlessly portraying a disgruntled tourist with such sublime physical comedy that he might as well be the first American mime.

Saving the best for last, this cinematic compilation ends with the deeply moving 14th Arrondissement, in which director Alexander Payne affirms his gift of truly empathizing with his flawed characters, even while tweaking their quirks. As Payne rests his camera on Margo Martindale’s lonely tourist, who narrates in a wildly imperfect French accent, the audience is allowed to share the exhilaration of her newfound enlightenment…the kind one can only get while visiting a foreign country. Using Emmanuel Benbihy’s exterior shots of Paris as transition points, these vignettes often flow into one another effortlessly. And in the final, magical moments, they begin to come together as one. Paris Je T’aime is a wonderful celebration of romance, France, and cinema itself.

Rating: **** (out of *****)