Paris, je t'aime (2006) is a collection of 18 short films in and about Paris. All are by different directors and have no connection between them. Originally there were to be 20 shorts, each centered in one of the arrondissements (boroughs) of Paris, but that didn't quite pan out. First there are only 18 and second I didn't get a real sense of place out of any of them. As with any collection it's a mixed bag.
The Coen brothers did the very fun "Tuileries" with Steve Buscemi accidently violating social customs at a Métro station. Sylvain Chomet, the creator of The Triplets of Belleville did his first live action film "Tour Eiffel" about a couple of mimes meeting. I also really enjoyed Wes Craven's "Pere-Lachaise" about an engaged couple (Emily Mortimer and Rufus Sewell) arguing while visiting Oscar Wilde's grave.
Alexander Payne (of Sideways) does a great segment with Margo Martindale as a Denver letter carrier who after 2 years of learning French takes her dream trip to Paris. She travels alone and narrates the experience for us. I don't speak French but even I could appreciate the horrible accent. It was quite funny up until the last moment which was simultaneously happy and sad.
Several segments are best described as poignant. In Walter Salles' "Far From the 16th," a young mother leaves her baby to take care of another as a nanny. In Isabel Coixet's "Bastille" a man about to leave his wife finds out she's terminally ill. "Place des Fêtes” by Oliver Schmitz is about a man who's fallen for a woman who turns out to be the paramedic treating him.
Others just don't work at all. Christopher Doyle's "Porte de Choisy" is a surreal story set in and around a Chinatown hair salon that's just a mess. Alfonso Cuaron does a long tracking shot with Nick Nolte and Ludivine Sagnier having a conversation I didn't care about. Same with the conversation between Ben Gazzara and Gena Rowlands in “Quartier Latin” by Frédéric Auburtin and Gérard Depardieu. Juliette Binoche sees Willem Dafoe as a cowboy on a horse while grieving her dead son in Nobuhiro Suwa's one note "Place des Victoires".
The others were just okay. Overall I found it a little long and I was happy to get out of the theater. Thinking back I really enjoyed some of them and the last one was worth the wait.
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