For many years, Paris has been known as the City of Light, and its beauty is almost constantly visible as the city stars in a downer of a movie. "Paris," the movie, which opens today, is largely a love poem to itself, a travelogue from the top of Montmarte to the gorgeous fruits and vegetables strung out for what appears to be miles, across the floors of Rungis, the giant wholesale market.
Writer-director Cedric Klapisch and Christopher Beaucarne, the director of photography, combine as one glorious scene follows another glorious scene.
There are actors on hand, too, led by the gorgeous Juliette Binoche, portraying a social worker and the mother of three children. Her brother, a dancer, played mournfully and gloomily by Romain Duris, has a heart ailment and is waiting for a transplant. Binoche and her children, attempting to lift Duris from his slough of despond, move in with him.
A second plot involves Fabrice Luchini as a history professor who develops a sick crush on a student, nicely portrayed by Melanie Laurent, and keeps interrupting her life with text messages.
Meanwhile, Binoche is quietly courted by a fruit seller who has a booth at a street market.
The various plot lines occasionally meet, but usually in a tangential manner, and there are some cuts to the Cameroons, where poor people try to figure out a way to get to France. It's difficult to understand what they are doing in the story, and they come in and out like a set of decorative chapter headings.
Actually, most of the story is doesn't add much to the world's knowledge, but watching Binoche and Paris for a couple of hours can be considered a worthy endeavor.
Opening today at the Plaza Frontenac
–Joe