Paris Je t'aime

Four months after I watched ‘Paris je t’aime’ first, it still continues to be one of my most watched movies ever, and also one of my biggest all time favorites. The view-count is ever increasing, because I watch at least one of the eighteen segments whenever I get the time. In a crowded bus, or before I let sleep settle down on my eyes at the end of a day, or while getting bored in the company of several uninteresting people, I just switch on my iPod, scroll to whichever segment I feel like watching just then, and get transported to probably the only city in the world which is home to both ‘Laidback-Romantics’ and ‘Everbusy-Workaholics’…



The directors of the eighteen segments, each based on one arrondissement(Paris is however, divided into twenty such divisions) include Gurinder Chadha Sylvain Chomet, Joel and Ethan Coen, Gerard Depardieu, Wes Craven, Alfonso Cuarón, Nobuhiro Suwa, Alexander Payne, Tom Tykwer, Walter Salles and Gus Van Sant, among others. The movie also boasts of quite a few iconic actors among its cast members – Juliette Binoche(The English Patient, Chocolat) as Suzanne, the heart-broken mother who cannot cope with her son’s death, Willem Dafoe(Green Goblin-Spider Man 3, The Aviator) as the imaginary cowboy, who gives Suzanne the strength to move on, Steve Buscemi(Armageddon, Spy Kids2, Big Fish) as the tourist who pays the price of ‘making eye-contacts’ with some local Parisians at a subway station, Miranda Richardson( Rita Skeeter in Goblet Of Fire, Provoked) as the woman in a red-trench coat who wins back the love of her philandering husband only after it is revealed ‘in coldly clinical terms’ that she has terminal leukemia , Sergio Castellito(King Miraz in Narnia-Prince Caspian)as the husband, Nick Nolte(Hotel Rwanda), Catalina Sandino Moreno(Mike Newell’s Love In The Time Of Cholera) as the mother who leaves her child in a crèche, and travels many a kilometer to look after someone else’s child, Olga Kurylenko(Quantum Of Solace) and Elijah Wood(Lord Of The Rings) as Vampire lovers, Natalie Portman(V For Vendetta, Cold Mountain, Star Wars 2 and 3, Closer, The Other Boleyn Girl) as an aspiring actress who falls for a blind man, Maggie Gyllenhaal(The Dark Knight, Brokeback Mountain) as a drug-addict American actress, Gena Rowlands(Gloria, Persepolis) as an old lady going through a divorce, and Margo Martindale(Million Dollar Baby, 28 Days) as the American lady who visits Paris for six days expending all that she’d saved in her many years’ life as a postman in Denver, and falls in love with Paris, sitting in a park)..



Well, presenting like this the entire concept looks quite mundane, but that is where the movie surprises, and in the process, gets its audience engrossed at a whole new level. Different narrative techniques, brilliant cinematography, diversity in set-ups and themes, and some awesomely befitting music… With all of these, ‘Paris Je t’aime’ strikes gold. As much as ‘Bastille’ or ‘Place des Victoires’ makes me cry every time, ‘Parc Monceau’ ‘Quartier de la Madeleine’ and ‘Faubourg Saint Denis’ never fails to put a smile on my face. The movie rounds up beautifully with Feist’s wonderfully moving song ‘We’re All In The Dance’ playing… I leave you with the lyrics of the song, and also with the recommendation to watch this particular movie, which I can guarantee, you’ll definitely love…



Life's a dance, we all have to do
What does the music require?
People are moving together
Close as the flames in a fire

Feel the beat; music and rhyme
While there is time.

We all go 'round and 'round
Partners of lost and found
Looking for one more chance
All I know is,
We're all in the dance

Night and Day, the music plays on
We are all part of the show
While we can hold on to someone
Even though life won't let us go

Feel the beat; music and rhyme
While there is time.


We all go round and round
Partners of lost and found
Looking for one more chance
All I know is,
We're all in the dance

We're all in the dance

We all go round and round
Partners of lost and found
Looking for one more chance
All we know is,
We're all in the dance….