Paris - ANIMAL MY SOUL

Tag Archive: Paris

MIDNIGHT IN PARIS: QUELLE MERDE!

January 9, 2012

What do you mean, you don’t want to wear my hat?

Let me start by saying that I used to be a huge fan of Woody Allen movies. In the late 1970s and 1980s, I would make a point of seeing his annual release as soon as it came out.

But I could never quite see him in the same light again after the scandal in 1992 when he left Mia Farrow for their adopted daughter Soon-Yi Previn when she was 21 and he was 56. I don’t think of myself as prudish, but I lost respect for him and all those scenes in his films where an attractive young woman falls for an older guy suddenly took on a more squalid aspect. I found I couldn’t enjoy his movies the way I once did.

I was ,however, fully prepared to overcome my prejudices and join the throng who are raving about his latest movie, Midnight In Paris. This has received universal critical acclaim and is even tipped as a possible Oscar winner.

But I have to count myself in a minority here as I found the movie shallow, smug and deeply irritating. Continue reading →

Tags: Dali, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Marion Cotillard, Martin Sheen, Mia Farrow, Owen Wilson, Paris, Picasso, Soon-Yi Previn, Time travel, Woody Allen

AMÉLIE’S FABULOUS DESTINY

Filed under: Movies, Music — 1 Comment

January 6, 2012

The fact that Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain is generally billed as a whimsical, French romantic-comedy is why it has taken me so long to see it. Whimsy is usually another word for cheesy, French often means pretentiously arty and rom-coms are mostly crap.

Thankfully, this charming movie made in 2001 proved me wrong on all three counts. It is a little over long but Audrey Tautou in the title role is so cute and watchable that this is not a major hardship.

She plays a shy waitress who starts a personal programme of anonymous good deeds to compensate for her feelings of loneliness. As a “Madonna of the unloved” she seems resigned to not finding love or happiness in her own life.

Of course, this changes when she becomes intrigued by a man whose bizarre hobby is collecting discarded pictures from public photo booths. This cranky pastime, together with the fact that he works in a porn shop and on a ghost train convinces her that she’s found a man who is a weird as she is. She contrives an elaborate game of cat and mouse before they finally meet face to face and their mutual attraction is confirmed.

All this is, indeed, whimsical and the Parisian setting and characters are very French (an English movie would have had more of a cynical edge to it). But it won my heart because there’s such a genuine affection and compassion for the routines and obsessions of all the lonely people. The movie’s eccentric humour is brought to life by Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s original direction and Yann Tiersen’s vivacious score.

One of the key roles is that of a reclusive old man who lives within spying distance of Amélie. He spends his days painting copies of Renoir’s ‘Le déjeuner des canotiers’ and complains of the difficulty in capturing the image of one figure in the painting of a young girl drinking a glass of water. She is “in the middle but outside” he says; a description that also sums up Amèlie’s life until she overcomes her natural timidity and starts to engage with the real world rather than living in the realm of fantasy.

A lovely movie.

Tags: Amélie, Audrey Tautou, Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Paris, rom-coms, Yann Tiersen

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CLUB SILENCIO

Filed under: Movies, Music — 1 Comment

September 1, 2011

silencio-2 In lieu of a new movie, which probably won’t happen, news in today’s Guardian of David Lynch’s first (only?) nightclub in Paris modelled on the Club Silencio in his film – Mulholland Drive.

This was where Rebekah Del Rio performed Llorando (Crying) – simply one of the greatest scenes in cinema which gives me goosebumps every time I watch it.