Paris, je t'aime

My expectations of this film were met because I saw so many different cross-cultural interpretations of love and loving in Paris. It is interesting to see the ways that love takes center-stage in lives and how it falls into the shadows in these short films. There is definite irony in this because, though Paris is the city of love and lovers, stereotypes have been deconstructed because not everyone in these short films has walked away from the situation holding love in a positive light. Paris, Je T'aime, the multi-director 2006 film could not be more deserving of a better title. Literally translated as “Paris, I love you”, Paris, Je T’aime is actually a film composed of 22 different short films, each graced with its own plot and protagonists which blend harmoniously with the subsequent and the result is one rich, masterful and thought-provoking narrative. Everyone who is anyone knows that Paris is the “City of Lights” and one of the most romantic cities of the world. Each of these twenty-two films capture this truth because some films convey stories where love has gone right, such as it has in the short film Montmartre, where a man sitting in his car watches as several women pass by and comments “All grabbed. All grabbed.”, meaning that they are all taken. Then he finds a woman passed out near his car, rescues her and as she is laying down in his backseat, he talks to her and tells her that if it had been necessary, he would have performed CPR on her. The mood of this short film shifts as he changes his attitude about women. First, he comments that they are “all grabbed”, as if women are simply apples that can simply be plucked from the produce aisle of a supermarket. Then, he finds a sense of humanity as he realizes that women are not objects but humans with lives who need to be taken care of. This testament of love seen in many of the short films differs from the tests of love seen in others. Place des fêtes tells the story of a man who has been recently stabbed who asks his paramedic if she would like to have coffee because they never went out for coffee before when he had asked her. It was love at first sight for him but she did not reciprocate the feeling. As she is saving him, he sings to her, hoping this will jog her memory of the first time they met. It fails to do so and when he finally dies, a waiter hands her the two cups of coffee that they were meant to share together and breaks down into tears. The final short film concludes with a woman named Carol who ties the film into a secure closure, saying while she sits on a park bench “That was the moment I fell in love with Paris, and the moment I felt Paris fall in love with me.” These words are perfect and render Paris, Je T’aime a perfect title because in each of the twenty-two short films, the spectator witnesses twenty-two distinct interpretations of love, all felt in Paris. Saying “Paris, I Love You.” makes sense because, in Paris, every one of these people realized what love really was or what it was not to them, what it could or could not be to them.