It’s notoriously difficult to retain quality control with a portmanteau film so we should not be surprised that Paris Je T’aime, a work composed of 18 separate segments by 18 different directors is all over the place. Happily, each work runs no longer than seven minutes, so if you’re not happy there’ll be another one along in a minute.
Highlights include Gurinder Chadha’s ‘Quais De Seine’ in which a horny teenage boy learns to respect the convictions of a young woman in a hijab and Walter Salles and Daniela Thomas’s ‘Loin Du 16ème’, a sad little social document following an immigrant nanny who leaves her own baby in day care so she can look after a rich woman’s child.
Lesser entries can be found under the name Gus Van Sant and Bruno Podalydès, but trust the Coens and Alexander Payne to save the day. Mr. Payne’s ‘14ème Arrondissement’ sees a Denver postal worker narrate her trip to Paris in touchingly nasal French. Better still, the brothers’ ‘Tuileries’ is a fabulously fast paced farce in which a hangdog Steve Buscemi is victimised by a sulky, pretty French girl.