Paris Je T'aime (original) (raw)

This is a predictably erratic portmanteau portrait of the city of love, a 'collective film' featuring 18 'little neighbourhood romances' by 20 different directors. The results range from the amusing (Steve Buscemi getting sucker-punched by the Coen brothers in Tuileries) to the whimsical (Wes Craven conjuring Oscar Wilde in Pere-Lachaise) to the dreary (Gus Van Sant twiddling his thumbs in Le Marais) to the downright irksome (Christopher Doyle and Sylvain Chomet, both dropping the ball right into the Seine).

I'd happily watch the segments by Alexander Payne or Nobuhiro Suwa again, but only on DVD, where the 'skip chapter' function will come in very handy.