Paris (Thursday, September 10, 2009) (126)

Cedric Klapisch's Paris is a French version of Robert Altman's Nashville. The movie follows 10 or so people around Paris as they go about their daily lives and get involved in rather mundane things. The main story, and possibly the most gripping, involves Elise (Juliette Binoche) who moves into her brother Pierre's (Romain Duris) apartment after he is diagnosed with heart disease. She is a single mother of three kids who has relatively lost some of her passion for life. The two help to keep one another bright and happy.

Elise gets some help from daily visits to the market where she becomes friendly with Jean, a fruit seller who works with his ex-wife and friends. We also meet Roland (Fabrice Lucini), a Parisian historian enamored of one of his beautiful students (Laetitia, played by the beautiful Melanie Laurent - onscreen again after Inglorious Basterds) and Philippe (Francois Bluzet), his brother, an architect dealing with typical urban anxiety.

Just as in Nashville, the story winds around all of these characters (and a few more smaller ones) who pass each other on the street or seek one another for assistance with their work. Just as Nashville had musical moments, Klapisch uses wonderful musical and dance sequences throughout the film. At one point there is a wonderful fantasy sequence with Pierre, a former dancer, in his old costume with his old troop while electronic music plays over top. It's quite well done. Later there's another scene with the very sick Pierre dancing with his friends at a party. Possibly the best dance and music sequence has Roland romancing Laetitia by goofilly dancing to an R&B song. It's very funny and makes us like him (and feel embarrassed for him) more than we already do.

Overall the film is delightful and has beautiful photography - though I would say that using extensive overhead helicopter shots and amazing views from apartments at the top of hills in Paris makes 'beautiful photography' easy to do. It's like shooting a movie in Antarctica or the Himalayas - it's easy cinematography.

Sadly, the movie doesn't amount to much of anything significant. The style is rather old and trite now (I mean, Nashville was made in 1975 and it seems there has been a stylistic knock-off every few years since). Most of the characters have very small amounts of growth through the movie, but because there are so many of them, it's hard for them to develop too much. The acting is good throughout, but sometimes the dialogue was a bit less than I would have liked.

Overall, though, a nice movie that will make you want to visit the 'City of Lights'.

Stars: 2.5 of 4