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Harvey Karten's Reviews

Review: Paris

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#1 of 1 Posted Sep-8 10:26 PM

From harveykarten Posts 798 Last Feb-7
To All [Msg # 23943.1 ]

PARIS

IFC Films
Reviewed for CompuServe by Harvey Karten
Grade: B+
Directed by: Cedric Klapisch
Written By: Cedric Klapisch
Cast: Juliette Binoche, Romain Duris, Fabrice Luchini, Albert Dupontel, Francois Cluzet
Screened at: Review 1, NYC, 9/8/09
Opens: September 18, 2009

Writer-director Cedric Klapisch, whose “L’auberge espagnole” deals with seven students in Barcelona who speak the language of love and friendship, states that he gave the title of his newest movie “Paris” because the City of Light is its principal character. Indeed, Klapisch’s photographer, Christophe Beaucarne, does his best to give us in the audience who may not be as familiar as he with the town’s topography, a view of its beauty. My own point of view? Like a major actor who cannot transcend the banality of his script, Beaucarne is unable to convey either his or his director’s affection for the city, which comes off like a place that is historically rich—the Bastille, the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame Cathedral, the Sacre-Coeur basilica in Montmarte—but aesthetically ordinary. If you really want to compare European locales, go to Prague, the prettiest city on the Continent with its Charles Bridge, the most exciting suspension structure in the world. (I say this with regret, as a New York resident who lives two shorts blocks from the walkway of the Brooklyn Bridge.)

Fortunately, the entire ensemble does the film justice, a cross-cutting, kaleidoscopic look at a variety of the residents of Paris: working-class and bourgeois; academic and illegal immigrants; each individual with his or her own problems and joys as all face life in one of the world’s most famous capitals. Consider “Paris” to be a “L’auberge espagnole” writ large, uncovering a body of people of diverse ages and occupations, not simply those living within the confines of a university.

Pierre (Romain Duris, who has been in a handful of the director’s pictures) anchors the proceedings, a handsome man who had to give up his career as a dancer when told—after waiting his turn for a couple of months to see a cardiologist for a simple ultrasound, Mr. Moore and Mr. Obama—that his heart is about to give out and must be replaced with a transplant. His sister Elise (the almost ubiquitous Juliette Binoche) takes leave from her job as a social worker to take care of him, moving her three youngsters into his apartment. He stares out at the city from his balcony, a man who now fits the cliché of a dying person who suddenly treasures every moment in life.

From those two, Klapisch spins out across the town to introduce workers at the huge Rungis wholesale food market, perhaps the largest of its kind in the world; an attractive young woman, Laetitia (Melanie Laurent, an upcoming actress who gave a devastating performance as Shosanna Dreyfus in the summer’s best commercial offering, “Inglourious Basterds”) who is being stalked by her much older professor, historian-of-Paris Roland Verneuil (Fabrice Luchini); a racist baker (Karin Viard) who hires a North African immigrant as her assistant; an unusual looking psychiatrist (Maurice Benichou) who tries to convince the unhappy professor that he (the professor), is unhappy; and a bevy or models, fishmongers and merchants to fill the over two-hour long film.

Some of the scenes are particularly amusing, including one that finds the aging professor dancing for young Laetitia, who laughs more at him than with him; another that is the most effectively illustrated dream of an architect. While nothing new is said here, the picture is well worth your time for its ensemble acting, its broad canvas, particularly for the comic, yet melancholy portrait of the historian played by Fabrice Luchini who, if he were in the role of Professor George in Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia” he’d be the one to tell Professor Nick, “You’ve got biology on your side, but I’ve got history.”

Unrated. 124 minutes. © 2009 by Harvey Karten Member: NY Film Critics Online

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Harvey Karten's Reviews

Review: Paris

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