Un film Je t'aime

Another movie review... Paris, Je t'aime. I'd give it 4.3879 stars out of 5.

Brilliant concept. Its a collection of 18 short stories (they had planned 21 but 2 of the stories didn't quite "fit in" and one guy just didn't show up to shoot his story!) told in French by internationally acclaimed directors (including Gurinder Chada of Bride and Predudice and Bend it like Beckham fame, Gus Van Sant - Goodwill Hunting, the Coen brothers - Fargo, Tom Tykwer - Run Lola Run and other big names). The cast is about 50 strong with big names like Steve Buscemi (Mr Pink in Reservoir Dogs), Juliette Binoche (Bleu of the Trois Coleurs trilogy reviewed in an earlier post), Natalie Portman, Elijah Wood and a whole bunch of others.

The stories are based in different districts of Paris which combine to form a brilliant ode to the city of lights. The stories are very wide ranging - right from inter-racial love (white man / muslim girl angle as told by Gurinder Chada) to vampires and from gay relationships to lonliness! Each of them is about 10 mins long - some bizarre stories told with a dose of the grandoise, others - simple and told intimately. My favorite ones were the ones directed by Gus Van Sant - high on irony and simplicity and also because it has Steve Buscemi and another one by Vincenzo Natali about Vampires starring Elijah Wood because it's just... really weird!

All in all - a brilliant composition of short films directed by some of the best contemporary directors around with some of the best contemporary actors around. It's a DVD you want to own.

As a parting note - I wonder what would happen if they tried a similar concept with the top directors of India and made a film on Bombay... Mani Ratnam, Vishal Bharadwaj, Kaizad Gustad, Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Farhan Akhtar, Ashutosh Gowariker, Dev Benegal and Nagesh Kukunoor along with Karan Johar and Sanjay Leela Bhansali thrown in for good measure!!? Would love to see that some day!!!