Paris je t’aime

I’ve never been to Paris, but have always had it on my list of places to visit. The history, the art, the culture are all well documented. That’s why it’s the most visited city in the world. More tourists flock to Paris each year than to any other location on the planet. I hope to count myself among those numbers some time soon, and the urge for going was increased a thousand-fold by the film I watched last night:

“Paris je t’aime”

The tagline for the film is “Stories of love. From the city of love.”, but it’s so much more than that. Featuring eighteen short films by twenty different directors, the five minute segments are each devoted to a different neighborhood in Paris, and each have their distinctive stamp. All of them are moving in their own way, some for good, some not, but that’s really up to the individual. Standouts include the contributions by Joel & Ethan Coen, Olivier Assayas, Isabel Coxiet, and Alexander Payne. That’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy the others, (I did apart from a segment on mimes and another on hairdressers) it’s just that those were particularly good, especially Payne’s American woman alone in Paris.

I’ve not been so moved by a film in years, and I can’t stress enough how good it is.

A +