Paris, je t'aime

Paris, je t'aime (French pronunciation: ​[paʁi ʒə tɛm]; Paris, I love you) is a 2006 anthology film starring an ensemble cast of actors of various nationalities. The two-hour film consists of eighteen short films set in different arrondissements (districts). The 22 directors include Gurinder Chadha, Sylvain Chomet, Joel and Ethan Coen, Isabel Coixet, Gérard Depardieu, Wes Craven, Alfonso Cuarón, Nobuhiro Suwa, Alexander Payne, Tom Tykwer, Walter Salles, Yolande Moreau, and Gus Van Sant.

Paris, je t'aime
Theatrical release poster
Directed bysee below
Produced byEmmanuel Benbihy
Claudie Ossard
Written byEmmanuel Benbihy (Transitions)
see below
Starringsee below
Music byVarious
CinematographyVarious
Edited byVarious
Production
company
Canal+
Victoires International
Distributed byLa Fabrique de Films (France)
Ascot Elite Entertainment Group (Switzerland)
Release date
  • 18 May 2006 (2006-05-18) (Cannes)
  • 21 June 2006 (2006-06-21) (France)
  • 10 September 2006 (2006-09-10) (TIFF)
  • 25 January 2007 (2007-01-25) (Germany)
[1]
Running time
120 minutes [2]
CountryFrance
Liechtenstein
Switzerland
Germany
LanguageFrench
English
Spanish
Mandarin
Arabic
Budget$13 million[3]
Box office$17.5 million[4]

Arrondissements

Initially, 20 short films representing the 20 arrondissements of Paris were planned, but two of them (the 15th arrondissement, directed by Christoffer Boe, and the 11th arrondissement, by Raphaël Nadjari) were not included in the final film because they could not be properly integrated into it. Each arrondissement is followed by a few images of Paris; these transition sequences were written by Emmanuel Benbihy and directed by Benbihy with Frédéric Auburtin. Including Benbihy, there were 22 directors involved in the finished film.

SegmentArrondissementDirectorWriterDescriptionActors
Montmartre18thBruno PodalydèsA man parks his car on a Montmartre street and muses about how the women passing by his car all seem to be "taken". Then a woman passerby faints near his car, and he comes to her aid.Bruno Podalydès, Florence Muller
Quais de Seine5thPaul Mayeda Berges and Gurinder ChadhaA young man, hanging out with two friends who taunt women who walk by, strikes up a friendship with a young Muslim woman.Cyril Descours, Leïla Bekhti
Le Marais4thGus Van SantA young male customer finds himself attracted to a young printshop worker and tries to explain that he believes the man to be his soulmate, not realizing that he speaks little French.Gaspard Ulliel, Elias McConnell, Marianne Faithfull
Tuileries1stJoel and Ethan CoenA comedy in which an American tourist waiting at the Tuileries station becomes involved in the conflict between a young couple after he breaks the cardinal rule of avoiding eye contact with people on the Paris Metro.Steve Buscemi, Axel Kiener, Julie Bataille
Loin du 16e16thWalter Salles and Daniela ThomasA young immigrant woman sings a Spanish lullaby ("Que Linda Manita") to her baby before leaving it in a daycare. She then takes an extremely long commute to the home of her wealthy employer (whose face is not seen), where she sings the same lullaby to her employer's baby.Catalina Sandino Moreno
Porte de Choisy13thChristopher DoyleDoyle, Rain Kathy Li, and Gabrielle Keng PeraltaA comedy in which a beauty products salesman makes a call on a Chinatown salon run by a woman who proves to be a tough customer.Barbet Schroeder, Li Xin
Bastille12thIsabel CoixetPrepared to leave his marriage for a much younger lover, Marie Christine, a man named Sergio instead decides to stay with his wife after she reveals a terminal illness - and he rediscovers the love he once felt for her.Leonor Watling, Sergio Castellitto, Miranda Richardson, Javier Cámara
Place des Victoires2ndNobuhiro SuwaA mother, grieving over the death of her little boy, is comforted by a magical cowboy.Juliette Binoche, Willem Dafoe, Martin Combes
Tour Eiffel7thSylvain ChometA boy tells how his parents, both mime artists, meet in prison and fall in love.Paul Putner, Yolande Moreau
Parc Monceau17thAlfonso CuarónAn older man and younger woman meet for an arrangement that a third person ("Gaspard"), who is close to the woman, may not be happy about. It is eventually revealed that the young woman is his daughter, and Gaspard is her baby. The segment was shot in a single continuous shot, almost five minutes long. When the characters walk by a video store, several posters of films by the other directors of Paris, je t'aime are visible in the window.Nick Nolte, Ludivine Sagnier
Quartier des Enfants Rouges3rdOlivier AssayasAn American actress procures some exceptionally strong hashish from a dealer whom she gets a crush on.Maggie Gyllenhaal, Lionel Dray
Place des fêtes19thOliver SchmitzA Nigerian man dying from a stab wound in the Place des fêtes asks a female paramedic for a cup of coffee. It is then revealed that he had fallen in love at first sight with her some time previously. By the time she remembers him, and has received the coffee, he has died.Seydou Boro, Aïssa Maïga
Pigalle9thRichard LaGraveneseAn aging couple act out a fantasy argument for a prostitute in order to keep the spark in their relationship.Bob Hoskins, Fanny Ardant
Quartier de la Madeleine8thVincenzo NataliIn this dialogueless segment, a young backpacker travelling late at night stumbles across a corpse—and a vampire feeding on it. Though initially frightened, he soon falls in love with her, and cuts his wrist to attract her with his blood. The wound causes the backpacker to fall down a flight of stairs and strike his head against the pavement in a potentially fatal injury, but the vampire reappears and feeds him some of her own blood, turning him into a vampire and allowing the two to begin a relationship.Elijah Wood, Olga Kurylenko
Père-Lachaise20thWes CravenWhile visiting Père Lachaise Cemetery, a young woman breaks up with her fiancé, who then redeems himself with the aid of advice from the ghost of Oscar Wilde.Emily Mortimer, Rufus Sewell, Alexander Payne
Faubourg Saint-Denis10thTom TykwerAfter mistakenly believing that his girlfriend, a struggling actress, has broken up with him, a young blind man reflects on the growth and seeming decline of their relationship.Natalie Portman, Melchior Beslon
Quartier Latin6thFrédéric Auburtin and Gérard DepardieuGena RowlandsA separated couple meet at a bar for one last drink before the two officially divorce.Ben Gazzara, Gena Rowlands, Gérard Depardieu
14e arrondissement14thAlexander PaynePayne and Nadine EidCarol, a letter carrier from Denver, Colorado on her first European holiday, recites in amateur French what she loves about Paris.Margo Martindale

Production

Julio Medem was attached to the project for a long time. He was supposed to direct one of the segments, but this finally fell through because of scheduling conflicts with the filming of Caótica Ana (2007).

Paris, je t'aime is the first feature film to be fully scanned in 6K and mastered in 4K in Europe (as opposed to the normal 2K). Encoding the image took about 24 hours per reel (at Laboratoires Éclair).

Both Emmanuel Benbihy and Gilles Caussade served as executive producers on the project. As the film is a collection of shorter segments, there were also producers attached to each episode of the project.

Influence

Following the success of Paris, je t'aime, a similarly structured film, New York, I Love You, focusing on life in that city, premiered at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival and was released in a limited number of theatres in 2009.

The Cities of Love website states that there are several more films in the series to be released. They include Rio, Eu Te Amo, Shanghai, 我爱你 and Jerusalem, I Love You. All the films will follow the same style with no fewer than 10 short films using their respective city as the main unifying character.

Release

The film premiered at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival on 18 May, opening the Un Certain Regard selection.[5] It had its Canadian premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on 10 September and its US premiere in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on 9 April 2007.[6] First Look Pictures acquired the North American rights, and the film opened in the United States on 4 May 2007.

Reception

Paris, je t'aime received generally positive reviews. It currently holds an 87% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 112 reviews, with an average score of 7.07/10. The site's consensus states: "Paris je t'aime is uneven, but there are more than enough delightful moments in this omnibus tribute to the City of Lights to tip the scale in its favor."[7] Metacritic gives the film a 66/100 rating based on 27 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[8]

References
  1. "Paris, je t'aime (2006) - Release dates". Amazon.com. Internet Movie Database. 12 September 2008. Retrieved 26 June 2012.
  2. "PARIS, JE T'AIME (15)". British Board of Film Classification. 11 April 2007. Retrieved 26 June 2012.
  3. "Paris, je t'aime (2006) - Box office / business". Amazon.com. Internet Movie Database. 1 January 2008. Retrieved 26 June 2012.
  4. Paris, je t'aime at Box Office Mojo
  5. "Festival de Cannes: Paris, je t'aime". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 16 December 2009.
  6. Thomas, Mary (6 April 2007). "Film Notes: Movie scholar to discuss student film opportunities". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Retrieved 19 December 2007.
  7. Paris, je t'aime at Rotten Tomatoes
  8. Paris, je t'aime at Metacritic
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