Paris je t’aime & all about dreams

With many vacationers back this week the cinema halls in Paris have announced a three day special. Trois euros trois jours. Next time it rains—which is likely to be within the next hour or two—step up to the challenge of loving Paris in crappy weather by stepping out of the street and into the theater. While there might not be dozens of new films recently out you might want to see there are definitely three. The first of which is the magnificent collage of short films, each shot in a specific neighborhood, by directors ranging from Gurinder Chadha to Ethan & Joel Coen. You will find fantasy and humor in some and a sadness in many. The points of views taken by these directors are varied: universal tales of immigration, displacement, and poverty; inevitable stories of tourists who discover they are in for more than they bargained; love stories with twists and curls. In the end some vignettes are more successful than others but the overall experience is rich. It is a treat to pass from the Coens to Walter Salles and Daniela Thomson, from Assayas to Oliver Shmitz, all is so short a span of time. Someone in the line ahead of me tried to buy her ticket in English. The usher told her she wouldn’t follow the film if she didn’t speak French and indeed most of the documentaries are in French. But she argued that she was here to see Paris and she was right. With these directors the small matter of language does not get in the way.

La Science des Rêves (dir. Michel Gondry Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) and La Tourneuse de Pages (dir. Denis Dercourt) are two other films to watch for. For anyone who has a reach dream life, Gondry’s film captures with many quirky touches the story of a young man who sometimes reverses his waking moments for his dream ones and vice versa. Goudry’s tactics on the screen include scenes with many toy machines and cardboard cutout cities that in the end, somewhat surprisingly, work. At one moment Stéphane dreams his hands are larger than him, the caricatural portrayal in the film is believable at a sensorial level. The success of this film lies in jumping over some of the hurdles posed by our reason and giving us a lifelike experience of someone else’s interiority which is far removed from ours. Much of the film is in English so you can follow along what is essential to the plot.

La Tourneuse de Pages is a psychological film with a plot that is not too hard to predict. A young girl is thwarted in her aspiration to win a piano competition and returns years later to work for the husband of the same woman (a concert pianist) who was responsible for her failure. She wins the affection of the couple and the trust of the concert pianist who is now going through a phase of extreme nervousness following an accident. The pianist entrusts her with turning her pages during a performance. The actors all interpret their roles to near perfection. With Pascal Greggory and Catherine Frot you’d expect no less. But the young woman who plays la tourneuse Déborah Français is also subtle. The role of a calm, cool, calculating, unshakeable woman out to get even is a perfect showcase for this relatively unknown young actress. The music of this film (both that played by the concert pianist and the soundtrack) combined with the tension-filled and often wordless interaction between Frot and Français make this film totally absorbing. It is entirely in French, however I’d be surprised if it didn’t have a US screening at the NY French film festival in April.