Paris, Je'Taime is an anthology romance/drama starring...holy shit, I'm not even gonna try. I mean, just so, so many people. It's an anthology made up of 18 short films, so even listing the directors would take a while.
And there is a lot of talent here. OK, here's a few: The Coen Brothers, Alexander Payne, Alfonso Cuarón, Wes Craven, Gus Van Sant, Gurinder Chadha, and those are just the directors I knew offhand. Likewise, the acting talent is bananas: Natalie Portman, Catalina Sadino Moreno, Juliette Binoche, Wilem Dafoe, Nick Nolte, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Bob Hoskins, and those are just the ones with Oscars or Oscar noms.
Anyway, the movie consists, as mentioned, of 18 short films centered around the districts of Paris (arrondissments; there are actually 20, but two of the short films apparently didn't make the cut). They run the gamut from comedy to drama to romance to horror, and each one is only a few minutes long. They don't usually have enough time to do much more than present a situation and sometimes a bit of resolution or twist, and not all of them are particularly memorable. I'm not gonna summarize all 18, but I'll talk about a couple of the ones that made an impact.
One has a woman (Moreno) leaving her babby in a daycare, singing him a lullaby, and then taking an absurd commute to watch some white lady's babby (we assume; we never actually see the woman), who tells her she's going to be an hour late getting home that night, and we end on her singing the same lullaby. That's it. But Moreno manages to pack a lot of acting into that little bit, from love for her little one to her heartstrings getting yanked at leaving him in baby jail to the long-ass trek on buses and trains to get to work to the frustration of knowing she's got an extra hour of this shit today to finally trying to get this other kid to calm down with just a bit more resentment in her voice. (I really loved Maria Full of Grace; I won't say Moreno deserved the Oscar that year because it was a really strong year in Best Actress, but she definitely deserved the nom.)
The Place de fêtes segment, starring Seydou Boro and Aïssa Maïga, is another one I really liked. We see an EMT (Maïga) tending to a Nigerian man (Boro) who's been injured, as he sings to her and asks her to have coffee, and then see in his flashbacks how he was fired and was trying to be a street performer when a couple of douchebags stole his guitar and stabbed him. The EMT's desperate attempts to help him and then her equally desperate request for a couple of cups of coffee - which she's then left standing there holding as he's taken away in an ambulance - is really heartbreaking.
And then I have to mention the Quartier de la Madelaine segment, because it's the reason I saw the movie. It's a weirdly shot (mostly) black-and-white segment - actually the cinematography reminds me a little of Sin City. A backpacker (Elijah Wood - told ya, lots of talent) stumbles on a vampire (Olga Kurlyenko) feeding on a dude, tries to made contact with her, and winds up slipping and falling down a flight of stairs and sustaining a head wound. She turns him, and we fade out on them chomping on each other's necks and obviously really loving it. (I saw this mentioned in a video on YubTub talking about...I think sexy vampires in cinema? and had never heard of this movie, so here we are.)
Like I said, they're not all great. I didn't love the Porte de Choisey segment about a guy (Barbet Schroeder) selling cosmetics; just wasn't sure what it was trying to do. Likewise, the very first one (Montmarte, directed by Bruno Podalydès, wasn't a great jumping off point because it just kind of...happens and doesn't really hook us).
Overall, though, I like this movie. It's hard to do a collection of such short films and have so many of them land (see also Holidays, which only had eight segments but a much lower rate of return. Didn't have nearly as many acclaimed directors, though), and I find myself thinking about the various segments a few days later. It's not my usual style of movie, necessarily, but I actually do kind of want to find New York, I Love You (there are like five more of these movies) and check it out.
My Grade: B+
Rewatch Value: Low
Next up: Session 9
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