Paris, je t'aime
So I was looking for random recent French movies to watch and stumbled across Paris, je t'aime or Paris, I Love You in Anglais. I didn't know anything about the movie beforehand other than that it got high marks over at imdb and it featured several short stories set in beautiful Paris.
I figured it's going to be like Love, Actually or the korean Sad Movie which I really enjoyed watching. It is almost similar, but while both those movies had like 6-8 concurrent storylines, which seems like a lot, Paris, je t'aime laughs and makes fun of them puny numbers. It has like, 18-20 (sorry I lost count) separate stories. Each story is about 5 minutes long and made by some of the best filmmakers in the world, from Alfonso Cuaron to Wes Craven (gasp!) just to name a few. I was also surprised to find some Hollywood actors finding their way into the movie, for example Natalie Portman, Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood) and a few others. Although I'm a bit disappointed of all the big names, the lovely Audrey Tautou wasn't one of them.
The first thing I noticed is how great the movie looks from start to finish. If you always liked Paris, you'll love it even more after watching this. The city of Paris looked absolutely gorgeous, and so do the people. The short segments all managed to touch on different aspects and types of love and kept me interested for the duration of the whole 2 hours. They're not all squeamishly romantic so there's no need to worry about that. Some are sad, some humorous and even horror was added to the mix. Yes, you can really tell these film makers are pros when they can say so much in a mere 5 minutes of screen time.
I'm not crazy enough to summarize all 20 segments so I'm going to pick my favourite and least favourite. Actually it's hard to pick the best but I liked Tuileries (featuring Steve Buscemi) for being hilarious, the one where the guy who fell in love with a beautiful Muslim girl which was so sweet (and the only one about a university student :P), and the one with Elijah Wood with the Sin City black & white atmosphere and "unique" love story. I usually love the way Christopher Doyle's unique style of cinematography (especially in Wong Kar Wai films) but his Porte de Choisy just didn't make any sense to me :*( Overall none of the segments stood out as being horrible or unwatchably boring, but this is maybe because they're too short to start to become a bore anyway.
If you're looking for a romantic movie that's not too heavy and pretty to look at, and something different give Paris, je t'aime a try. But be prepared to be bombarded with the array of different characters and storylines. Rating: 8.5/10
I figured it's going to be like Love, Actually or the korean Sad Movie which I really enjoyed watching. It is almost similar, but while both those movies had like 6-8 concurrent storylines, which seems like a lot, Paris, je t'aime laughs and makes fun of them puny numbers. It has like, 18-20 (sorry I lost count) separate stories. Each story is about 5 minutes long and made by some of the best filmmakers in the world, from Alfonso Cuaron to Wes Craven (gasp!) just to name a few. I was also surprised to find some Hollywood actors finding their way into the movie, for example Natalie Portman, Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood) and a few others. Although I'm a bit disappointed of all the big names, the lovely Audrey Tautou wasn't one of them.
The first thing I noticed is how great the movie looks from start to finish. If you always liked Paris, you'll love it even more after watching this. The city of Paris looked absolutely gorgeous, and so do the people. The short segments all managed to touch on different aspects and types of love and kept me interested for the duration of the whole 2 hours. They're not all squeamishly romantic so there's no need to worry about that. Some are sad, some humorous and even horror was added to the mix. Yes, you can really tell these film makers are pros when they can say so much in a mere 5 minutes of screen time.
I'm not crazy enough to summarize all 20 segments so I'm going to pick my favourite and least favourite. Actually it's hard to pick the best but I liked Tuileries (featuring Steve Buscemi) for being hilarious, the one where the guy who fell in love with a beautiful Muslim girl which was so sweet (and the only one about a university student :P), and the one with Elijah Wood with the Sin City black & white atmosphere and "unique" love story. I usually love the way Christopher Doyle's unique style of cinematography (especially in Wong Kar Wai films) but his Porte de Choisy just didn't make any sense to me :*( Overall none of the segments stood out as being horrible or unwatchably boring, but this is maybe because they're too short to start to become a bore anyway.
If you're looking for a romantic movie that's not too heavy and pretty to look at, and something different give Paris, je t'aime a try. But be prepared to be bombarded with the array of different characters and storylines. Rating: 8.5/10