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List Price: $19.98 | | Label: First Look Pictures
Salesrank: 2228
Released: November 13, 2007 |
| Our Price: $11.86 |
| Used Price: $9.03 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
In PARIS, JE T'AIME, celebrated directors from around the world, including the Coen Brothers, Gus Van Sant, Gurinder Chadha, Wes Craven, Walter Salles, Alexander Payne and Olivier Assayas, have come together to portray Paris in a way never before imagined. Made by a team of contributors as cosmopolitan as the city itself, this portrait of the city is as diverse as its creators' backgrounds and nationalities. With each director telling the story of an unusual encounter in oe of the city's neighborhoods, the vignettes go beyond the 'postcard' view of Paris to portray aspects of the city rarely seen on the big screen. Racial tensions stand next to paranoid visions of the city seen from the perspective of an American tourist. A young foreign worker moves from her own domestic situation into her employer's bourgeois environs. An American starlet finds escape as she is shooting a movie. A man is torn between his wife and his lover. A young man working in a print shop sees and desires another young man. A father grapples with his complex relationship with his daughter. A couple tries to add spice to their sex life. These are but a few of the witty and serendipitous narratives that make up PARIS, JE T'AIME.
Description of Paris, Je T'Aime (Paris, I Love You):
Even with the impressive talent involved, Paris, je t'aime could've ended up like a fallen soufflé. Though all 18 films aren't equally successful, they hit the mark more often than not. Romantics anticipating happy love stories set amongst the City of Lights may be disappointed to find that many are quite sad and that some parts of Paris are less inviting than others (each takes place in a different district). Further, the shorts aren't all en Français, since the actors and directors hail from around the world, but their outsider perspectives lend the project depth. The strongest entries are provided by Gurinder Chadha (Quais De Seine), Gus Van Sant (Le Marais), Oliver Schmitz (Place des Fêtes), and Alexander Payne (14ème Arrondissement), but all find interesting ways to explore cultural misunderstandings. In Joel and Ethan Coen's tragic-comic Tuileries, tourist Steve Buscemi angers a couple simply by making eye contact. Like Miranda Richardson in Isabelle Coixet's heartbreaking Bastille, he does all his acting with his expressive face. And while Maggie Gyllenhaal speaks the language adroitly in Olivier Assayas's intriguing Quartier des Enfants Rouges, Nick Nolte (purposefully) mangles it in Alfonso Cuarón's surprisingly weak Parc Monceau. The anthology ends with Payne's audio-postcard, in which Margo Martindale's postal carrier narrates her vacation in awkward, but endearing French. Instead of another person, she falls in love with Paris, simply for allowing her to be herself. It's the perfect finish to a poignant repast, like strawberries dipped in chocolate--sweet, but not cloyingly so. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
Paris, Je T'Aime (Paris, I Love You) Reviews:
I think I'm in love... 
2008-09-11 - Originally written Nov 27, 2007...
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 +
The one about the different kind of "love" 
2008-09-04 - In 2001, I enjoyed an HK film titled "Heroes in Love" which covered the various different forms of "love", four different stories and different directors. Enjoyed the movie very much and years later, when I heard of a film that would feature over a dozen shorts by different directors and talent form all over the world which all take place in the City of Love... Paris, France. I was sold.
In Paris Je T'Aime (Paris, I love You), there are 18 different shorts directed by famous directors worldwide and featuring major talent as well from different parts of the world.
Similar to "Heroes in Love", a different take on "love" with each short but if there was one thing that is consistent with each short is that every location is just beautiful and shows off the beauty of Paris.
For Gurinder Chadha's ("Bend it Like Beckham") titled "Quais De Seine" features a group of three guys sitting around and two of them hollering at the women passing by, while one just watches the woman sitting next to them. Sitting next to them is a young muslim woman who just can't believe what the guys are saying and when she walks off, trips...and the young man helps her up. This segment just shows the two different cultures but yet despite the difference, the young man is fasicinated by her.
For Joe and Ethan Coen ("The Big Lebowski", "O Brother Where Art Thou?") and their short "Tuileries", Sam Buscemi is a tourist and catches the eye of a couple who are making out. Of course, the guy doesn't appreciate it and thus a confrontation begins.
For Olivier Assayas's "Quartier des Enfants Rouges", Maggie Gyllenhaal is an actress who has a passion for narcotics and thus an interesting short to watch her drugged out.
For Australian filmmaker Christopher Doyle, who we know for his work in a variety of camera work for Asian films "Porte de Choisy" features Asian women in France and a sort of nod to the "Chung King Express" days, a classic Faye Wong hit is played during his short.
As for my favorites, Spanish writer-director Isabel Coixet's "Bastille" is a short about a man who is planning to confess to his wife that he wants to leave her. But before he tells her, she drops the news that she has a terminal illness and is dying. And decides to be with her for the remainder of her life and rediscovers he loves her until its too late.
In "Place de Fetes", German writer-director Oliver Schmitz directs a tragic tale of a man who works at a parking garage and falls for a woman he meets. He very much wants to meet her again but when they do, it's not in the best circumstances.
For "Faubourg Saint-Denis", German writer-director Tom Tykwer has an interesting short which features an actress played by Natalie Portman and a young blind man (Melchior Besion). The young man thinks his girlfriend has broken up with him and reminisces of his times with her. This camera and editing/post-production work for this alone was impressive.
"Plae de Victories" by Japanese writer-director Nobuhiro Suwa's short is a mother (played by Juliette Binoche) who mourns her son who has died and just wants to see and hold him one more time. It's a touching short.
There are a few segments that were ok and others that were freaky such as a vampire tale starring Elijah Wood but all in all, I really enjoyed this film.
For one, to have 22 directors come together for 18 shorts about love in Paris and for them to do it in their own style, and some who were able to work with the talent that they really wanted was just very cool. Location scouting for this film was just done well. Every outdoor scene, restaurant scene...everything was well selected and overall, I enjoyed the film.
Now with that being said, both these films are not for everyone. There are those who will watch it and just think both are a waste of their time. While there will be those who watch it and just see the beauty of these two films.
There are different kinds of love and for the directors to explore those differences, that's what I found so fascinating.
nice movie if you want to reminesce about Paris - story lines dont tie in together 
2008-07-22 - Wish the stories tied in some - some worked some a little obscure or tried too hard to be creative
Too many Americans in Paris ... 
2008-07-16 -
This movie started out very well, very touching and absolutely riveting. The opening stories had my complete attention and even if they seemed `well-acted' they had a ring of sincerity and honesty about them. The story about the woman fainting and then getting a ride from the nervous and always single bachelor to the woman who sings to her child with love and then moments later sings the same song to a different child in complete apathy was heart-wrenching and a little hard to watch.
But then, somewhere along the way, someone thought it was a good idea to start to bloat the screen with bloated, train-wreck television Americans and other over-exposed celebs. Leading the assault with Nick Nolte looking and sounding like he did the night he got pulled over in Malibu.
Then we have to endure a coke addled Maggie Gyllenhaal in her most ridiculous appearance on film yet. Yes ... playing herself as a drug addled American Film Actress abroad. Good lord, people can it get anymore mundane than Maggie Gyllenhaal not only acting flat, but being her usual flat performing self? She's made a few gems along the way with Secretary and Donnie Darko, but the bulk of her work is forgettable. What next ... a two hour movie with her sleeping, shot with a green night-vision camera? I wouldn't be surprised if someone is trying to pitch that project right now. And then roll out a few more celebs like Elijah Wood, Natalie Portman, Willem Dafoe, Gena Rowlands, Rufus Sewell, Bob Hoskins, Maggie Gyllenhaal, ad infinitum ad naseum. The end result being that whatever integrity this film had and whatever level of sincerity about love that there was in the beginning gets completely flushed down the toilet and wiped off the coke mirror laying on the trailer make-up counter.
Perhaps if they would've left the A-list / B-list people alone after Steve Buscemi, who was actually good in this, it would've been a lot better.
If the film had a lot less `cameo appearances' of these over-paid and over-exposed celebrities and more stories of everyday people in Paris, this movie would've ended up being one of the great classic films of this age. If they thought that star-power and name recognition was a good addition to this, they were wrong. I found more interest in watching Winged Migration. If you want to see a really good film about falling in love in France - try 37°2 Le Matin, or Betty Blue as it was titled for English speakers.
Great human taste
2008-06-28 - It is an amazing point of view of what we are, the humans. I think not only in Paris but indeed it is the city which underlines all the people life sensations.
