In other parts of the city, respected professor Roland Verneuil (Fabrice Luchini) is going through something of a mild midlife crisis since the death of his father. While his architect younger brother Philippe (François Cluzet) looks on in slight amusement, the well known educator embarks upon a strange form of clandestine text message flirtation with one of his students, Laetitia (Mélanie Laurent), seemingly unaware of the potential consequences if she were to discover these salacious bons mots were coming from him.
But this isn’t all the City of Lights has going on within the confines of its twisty cement streets. Jean (Albert Dupontel) is a produce vendor in an outdoor market, trying to move on after his divorce even though he works beside his ex-wife every single day; a persnickety bakery owner (Karin Viard) goes through employees like most people go through Kleenex, positive her latest hire Mourad (Zinedine Soualem) isn’t going to last the week; two fashionista sisters, Marjolaine (Audrey Marnay) and Victoire (Annelise Hesme), glide through life with apparent ease, unconcerned how their precocious selfishness affects those around them; Benoit (Kingsley Kum Abang) is on his way from Cameroon to Paris, attempting to enter the city illegally eager to start a new, hopefully better, life.
This is Paris, the new film from Russian Dolls and L'auberge espagnole writer/director Cédric Klapisch. It is a complicated character study of life in constant motion, the ins and outs of all their unique personalities coming to the forefront as each of them does their best to get on with their daily activities. Klapisch presents the French capital as seen through the eyes of its residents, no monument to grand or back alley to miniscule for him to take the time to lovingly document.
What is more, not only does he turn the city of Paris into its own living, breathing character, he also shows other filmmakers how to make these multi-person melodramas correctly. While coincidences do happen allowing for strangers to become friends, when they occur they feel natural and unforced; Élise shopping at Philippe’s market, Benoit the kindly waiter who made Victoire’s vacation in Cameroon memorable, Pierre frequenting the tiny bakery near his apartment in which Mourad has just been hired.
None of these described meetings or the countless other ones Klapisch designs feel illegitimate. Just the opposite, the honesty of these comings and goings so startling they began to have a progressively emotional quality I found remarkable. More, the director never leads things in the direction you expect, happy to leave loose ends dangling or have his characters’ next steps be a mystery. Whenever I thought the movie would bob it weaved; wherever I thought there would be a curveball, Klapisch threw one straight down the middle instead.
Stepping back for a moment, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out Christophe Beaucarne’s (My Father’s Glory) cinematography, Francine Sandberg’s (Russian Dolls) editing, Marie Cheminal’s (Bad Faith) production design and Loïk Dury’s (Jet Set) score. What each of them brings to the project is different yet I cannot imagine one facet working without the other. Everything melds sumptuously together, all the technical aspects producing a simplistic symmetry that’s nothing less then perfection.
But I reserve the most praise for Klapisch. This movie snuck up on me, almost out of nowhere, and by the time it was drawing to a close I suddenly came to the realization I didn’t want this multifaceted drama to end. I wanted to stick with these people, learn where they would go to next, see how they dealt with tragedy, discover how their lives would change when the potential for true happiness knocked on their door.
The glory is that these human stories are eternally ongoing. They do not stop just because the end credits role or the curtain closes, they evolve and change along with the exiting audience, going places original and unique depending on each viewer’s personal point of view. It is a movie that will live in the heart and take up residence in the mind, and like a person's warmhearted feelings for their own hometown my visit to Paris was a unique adventure I’ll happily never forget.
