PARIS... Je T'aime (Paris, I Love You)

Dont be confused because of the title.. I'm not writing French here. All I want to share is this movie. The format of this movie will be familiar to the people who have seen Dus Kahaniyan. But don't even make the mistake of comparing it to that. 18 short clips comprising a full movie made by 18 famous directors.

Now comes the good part. The movie is in French but i got it with English subtitles. Each of these 18 short films focus on the neighbourhood of Paris with stories of love, separation, frustration, pain but above all a feeling of hope that pervades each of these stories. To be truthful, 2 or 3 of them are downright nonsense, and i even skipped one completely but thankfully they end in 7 minutes and are more than made up for by the others. Morover, each of these directors show different aspects of Paris, the skyscrapers, the metro(and the rule that forbids eye contact with strangers on the Paris metro), the parks, the music clubs... everything.
If i want to describe the best story among the 18 i cant choose one. There is no best story, there are best stories each of them so different and beautiful.

The picture above is a part of one of the best of these films. A mother grapples to accept the fact that her little son died, and a mystical cowboy shows her how to move on. Its beautiful and heartbreaking.



There is another clip.. which is very difficult to describe until you see it. Directed by Gurinder Chadha it tells the story of a chance encounter between a Muslim girl and a Christian boy in Paris, and how they strike up a friendship.







The 2nd best clip, which i loved was Tour Eiffel by director Sylvain Chomet. The little boy is sooooo adorable and cute as he describes the world he sees through his parents eyes. His parents are both mime artists and the movie is a must watch.

Another great one is Place des fêtes, a story of a paramedic who is treating a man wounded. The man asks her out for coffee and by the time she realises she knows him, he dies in her arms - the arms of the woman he loved at first sight.

And lastly, is Faubourg Saint-Denis, a story about a blind man who believes his long-time girlfriend is leaving him. He thinks of the times they spent together, the love they shared and the emptiness of life now, only to receive a call saying she was rehearsing lines for a play. This is by far my favorite though i forgot to mention Bastille which is about a man who falls in love with his wife again, after getting to know that she is suffering from a terminal illness. And i don't think this love sprang from pity. Sometimes in life, you need something to remind you of the love you have for someone. Sometimes you just forget, in the mundane everyday existence, the love which could keep you happy forever.





Finally i would say to everyone, please please go watch this movie!!! It is one of the few movies that seem to have just started when they end. Time flies and as you finish seeing it, the different sides of love... you want to fall in love someday.





Finally apart from this movie I also read The Fountainhead. Its huge and a little monotonous in some places but i hardly found any other problem. Though my mom and brother found it eternally boring with the details of architecture, i loved it, especially the protagonist Howard Roark. Though i dont agree with the lady Dominique Francon. However two amazing quotes from the book:

• "It must have been spring," said Toohey. "It usually is. There's always a dark movie theater, and two people lost to the world, their hands clasped together-but hands do perspire when held too long, don't they? Still, it's beautiful to be in love." Though this one is said by someone i despised, still its true and beautifully said. The hands held together for a long time do perspire. There are hiccups in every relationship and its the test to overcome them. A test which many fail.
• "I've always thought that a feeling that changes never existed in the first place". Indeed. A true feeling is one which is constant. I still love my family, I still love certain books and i still love lots of people. When people talk about moving on, and having 3 girlfriends, i wonder about their integrity. If you can move on, it means that you were never there in the first place.
  

Sorry for the exceptionally long post. But there were so many updates. And there wont be another post for sometime... coz im off on a vacation!!!! yahooo!!!!!!!!!!