Paris je t'aime.

"If there's a kind of movie I hate to review more than any other, it's the one that sounds too good to be true," writes Jürgen Fauth. "Paris, je t'aime sounds like a connoisseur's delight: two hours of short films celebrating the most romantic city in the world, directed by an impressive roster of international auteurs and starring a legion of favorite actors.... But far too many of the shorts are duds that don't nourish the audience in even the most basic ways."

"One reward of this anthology is that it gave me the chance to admire two Americans whose long works have generally left me numb," writes Stanley Kauffmann in the New Republic. "Le Marais, written and directed by Gus Van Sant, is a delicate draft of the beginning of a gay relationship. Tuileries, set in the Métro stop of that name, written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, is more enjoyable than anything of theirs except Fargo."

Updated through 5/7.

Ed Gonzalez, writing in the Voice, agrees: "Leave it to the Coen brothers to show everyone up with their acerbic Tuileries, in which Steve Buscemi's encounter with a hellish couple inside a Metro station slyly hints at a raison d'être for the Mona Lisa's smile - a symbol for the transfixing allure of the most beautiful city in the world."

"Each of these shorts seems French in nuances that echo the legacies of Renoir, Carne, Guitry, Clement, Chabrol, Truffaut, Rivette, Rohmer, Eustache, Pialat and others," writes Armond White in the New York Press. "In a sense, returning the favor.... [I]t's a one-movie film festival."

"Paris je t'aime shows that short films are usually just okay because they're quite difficult to do well," writes Matt Singer at IFC News. "Here is a collection of some of the best filmmakers in the world; many have made classics, if not masterpieces. If they can't pull off a really great six-minute film, how can we expect some young turk from USC to do it?"

"Despite the number of voices, there is for the most part a cohesive tone throughout, a sort of ragged romanticism," writes Jason Bogdaneris in the L Magazine.

Online viewing tip. David Poland and Ray Pride lunch with Oliver Assayas.

Earlier: Nick Schager at Slant; Philippa Hawker reflects in the Age on the century-plus-old love affair between Paris and the cinema; "Cannes. Paris je t'aime."

Updates, 5/4: In the New York Times, Stephen Holden describes a handful of favorites and concludes, "For this kind of omnibus movie a success rate of two out of three is a pretty high batting average. There are no home runs, however, only doubles, singles and coy little bunts."

"[T]aken as a whole, cogent piece of work, Paris makes an underwhelming survey of the state of the art house - nothing here even whiffs at the rarified abjection found in Antonioni's segment in 1953's similarly conceived, Rome-set L'Amore in citta," writes Nick Pinkerton at indieWIRE.

At Nerve, Scott Indrisek picks his "few saving graces. Tom Twyker's fast-edit love story between a blind boy and a visiting actress (Natalie Portman) is refreshing, even if he's recycling some of his own slightly stale mojo. Alfonso Cuaron's otherwise lackluster short is redeemed by a slurring, slovenly Nick Nolte, who's never been quite this visibly fucked-up on-screen. Alexander Payne wins top honors for the closing vignette." And Bilge Ebiri interviews Wes Craven.

Update, 5/7: "[T]he overall hit-miss ratio is too low to ignore," writes Ryan Stewart at Cinematical.

Posted by dwhudson at May 3, 2007 1:37 PM