Street Date: May 6

Official Synopsis:
Paul, depressed from his recent break-up with Anna, returns home to Paris to live with his divorced father and womanizing, slacking younger brother, Jonathan. With little success, his carefree sibling and doting father try to cheer him up with women, wine, and home-cooked meals. When, in the midnight hour, Paul is forced to entertain one of his brother's desperate girlfriends, he begins to realize that while things never go according to plan, family and the pursuit of love are always worth the fight.
  
Our Take:
Dans Paris is what filmgoers with less experience with French films would probably assume a French film would be like.  By that, I mean it contains a pinch of pretension, male and female nudity, and a serious topic (in this instance suicide) treated rather flippantly.  Yet, this is what I loved about Dans Paris, because it seems as if director/writer Christophe Honoré knew this at all times and infused his characters, not just his direction, with this idea.

The film opens (here is the pretension) with one of the leads, Louis Garrel, breaking the fourth wall and directly addressing the audience. In film you don’t get much more pretentious than that.  But, Honoré knows this and his lead apologizes to us before he begins and then closes his breach quite knowingly.  I am sure this opening scene will infuriate many, but I am firmly in the enchanted minority.  The film goes on to begin its basic set-up: Paul (Roman Duris) is depressed over his recent break-up with his girlfriend so he moves back into the family apartment occupied by his younger brother (Louis Garrel), and father (Guy Marchand). 

With that as our jumping off point, we are then treated to glimpses into the lives of these people and their relationships with women.  Paul’s interactions are seen through expertly placed flashbacks. Garrel manages to pick up three women wandering around Paris, only one of whom he knew before their chance meeting.  It is in Garrel’s performance that the ripples of the French New Wave are still felt.  Garrel begins his journey as a bid to get Paul out of the apartment by saying he can make it from their apartment to a department store in twenty minutes.  Naturally, those twenty minutes turns into a day filled with detours as he encounters three beautiful women.  This idea of documenting a character’s day of wandering personal adventure is seen in the American film that has been marked as one of the prime influences on the French New Wave filmmakers of the 60’s, Little Fugitive, as well as in the French New Wave classic 400 Blows.  Garrel’s adventure is the highlight of the film. 

The major theme of the film is familial love explored through the lens of how family members deal with tragedy and help each other through difficult times.  The viewers learn that the two brothers had a sister who committed suicide.  And we further learn that detachment is hereditary. We see this proven to us in the way the father and Garrel deal with Duris.  The father acts as if his son’s depression is a cold that can be cured with chicken soup, while Garrel does his best to ignore the depression and tries to pry his brother out of it with laughter.  This realistic approach to family dynamics is refreshing to see.  There’s no rushing to the phone to call a psychiatrist and no family game plan on how to deal with Duris.  Each member of the family independently tries to help their loved one in the way they feel is best based on their own bond with him.  The film begins to waver a bit in the third act as Duris has some realizations about love and what it means, which leads to a touching song shared via telephone between his ex and him. 

Dan Paris contains the following special features:

* Rendez-Vous With Louis (6 minutes) – A short film by director Christophe Honoré featuring Louis Garrel as himself.  It opens with Garrel reading a couple of his fan letters on camera and then engaging four American college-aged people from Florida in a less than stimulating discussion, the lowlight of which is when the four Americans admit to not knowing who Woody Allen is or being able to name a single French film or actor.  Garrel does his best to be sincere, so this is not a Borat ambush, but it is hard not to find cringe-inducing humor in the ignorance of these people.

* Deleted Scene (4 minutes) – A nice scene shared by Garrel and Marchand that, while excellent in isolation, was better left out of the film for obvious pacing reasons

Dans Paris may be what some would term a “typical” French film, but I more than beg to differ.  Dans Paris features excellent young talent in Duris and Garrel and is a touchingly original family drama.  The film also highlights Paris and its beauty, making this an easy sell for ardent Francophiles.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

Overall Picture:
Movie: A
DVD:  C+

- Matthew Orlando
Staff Writer