Dans Paris (2006) - film review

After breaking up with his girlfriend, Paul turns his back on his life in the country and returns to his family home in Paris.  Depressed and withdrawn, Paul mopes about whilst his brother Jonathan, who appears to be his complete opposite, swings from one romantic entanglement to another without any sense of regret...

For his third full-length film, director Christophe Honoré brings together the two talented lead actors of his first two films, Romain Duris and Louis Garrel, for a darkly introspective study in existential angst and free love.  Dans Paris is a strangely beguiling film which captures a more melancholic, grubbier side of the famous City of Lights than most cinema-goers are used to seeing. 

Where the film disappoints is in its seemingly endless references to the films of the French New Wave, which become tedious and distracting after a while.  Dans Paris is a film that deserves to stand on its own merits but it feels like a greatest hits compilation of the works of Truffaut, Godard, Rivette... et les autres. 

Needless to say, the performances are of the highest calibre (Garrel is particularly good in this film) and these retain the realism and humanity that Honoré seems so eager to wreck with some tasteless humour and his over-enthusiastic homage to his illustrious predecessors.  Not Honoré’s best work, and certainly far less subversive than his previous films, but an engaging and hauntingly lyrical piece all the same.

© filmsdefrance.com 2009

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