Paris, je t'aime

Director: Various
Year Released: 2006
Rating: 1.5

A string of shorts by a diverse array of filmmakers tries to capture the mystical air of the City of Lights, but acts as a sterile, largely negligible advertisement. It starts off wonderfully with the Podalydès piece, which has a lonely man rescuing a woman who collapsed in the street, but then immediately shifts into a pandering segment by Gurinder Chadha and continues on uneven ground thereafter. There are a few high moments (the shorts by the Coens, Payne and Natali) but the low ones are really desperate (the ones by Salles/Thomas, Tykwer, Craven, LaGravenese). Suwa's piece wins a special award for incoherence ... and dressing up Willem Dafoe as a cowboy. Want to experience the joy of Paris? Go there, don't mind the exchange rate, and try to avoid being an Ugly American....