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Paris, Je T'Aime

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Trailer for "Paris, Je T'Aime"

It would take up more than the space allotted to mention even the most noteworthy directors and actors on view in this collection of 19 short films set in Paris, all of course having to do with love. Happily few of them are predictable, and while many find the filmmakers revisiting earlier works, for five minutes that’s not the worst thing in the world, a little lagniappe between features. So what if Olivier Assayas’ segment seems borrowed equally from his Irma Vep and Clean—this time his actress is Maggie Gyllenhaal, and that’s enough reason to watch. The Coen Brothers contribute a bit in a Paris subway station that shows what a wonderful silent comedian Steve Buscemi would have been. The range of love is wide, from the love of an immigrant mother for the infant she works to support (Catalina Sandino Moreno in a film by Central Station’s Walter Salles) to that of an aging couple discussing their divorce (Ben Gazarra and Gena Rowlands showing what they learned from all those years working with John Cassavetes). Two other immigrants are at the center of perhaps the most touching film, directed by the unknown-to-me Olivier Schmitz, though the best overall segment is certainly Alexander Payne’s closer, narrated in the sweetly atrocious accent of a middle-aged American woman who discovers the real Paris on a lonely vacation there. (You can also spot Payne playing Oscar Wilde helping smooth the course of young love from his grave in Wes Craven’s atypical short.) Among the directors whose names you may not recognize are Gurinder Chadha (Bend It Like Beckham), Isabelle Coixet (My Life Without Me), and Sylvain Chomet (The Triplets of Belleville); as for the cast, well, it’s nicer to be surprised, isn’t it? And if a few of the films seem tedious or minor, don’t worry—they’re over with soon enough.