European Films

 

French director Cédric Klapisch wowed both French and international audiences with his quick-witted charmer L'auberge espagnole (The Spanish Apartment) from 2002, which introduced Romain Duris and Cécile de France to legions of new fans. The unsure student and his lesbian best friend returned for the sequel Les poupées russes (Russian Dolls), set -- though not filmed -- five years later, with all the characters hitting thirty. For his upcoming film Paris (our review), a kaleidoscopic portrait of the French capital, Duris will play the pivotal role of a possibly terminally ill Parisian, while the director has also recruited some of France's finest talent to star alongside Duris, including Juliette Binoche, Albert Dupontel, François Cluzet, 2007 French Shooting Star Mélanie Laurent, Fabrice Luchini, Karin Viard and Gilles Lellouche. The film will premiere in France in February 2008.

 

Klapisch was not a newcomer when he made the smash hits L'auberge espagnole and Les poupées russes (together good for over 8.2 million visitors in Europe alone); quite the contrary, though they certainly meant his big break in Europe outside of France. It was not the first time Klapisch worked with actor Romain Duris either; their collaboration started eight years earlier with Le peril jeune (Good Old Daze) and continued with Chacun cherche son chat (When the Cat's Away) from 1996 and the futuristic Peut-être (Maybe) from 1999 before making L'auberge espagnole in 2002.

 

In Paris, Duris plays a young Parisian who might be terminally ill, and who starts to see the world differently because of the fact he might soon die. As a result he falls in love with life everywhere in the city: as lived by people as different as a baker, a social worker, a dancer, an architect, a homeless man, a university professor, a model and an illegal immigrant. 

 

For his latest film, a €13 million production that appears to be a valentine to the French capital as experienced and lived by vastly different people, Klapisch seems to follow the recent wave of Paris-set films told in varying intersecting stories, including the 2007 Foreign Language Oscar submission Fauteuils d'orchestre (Avenue Montaigne), which also starred Dupontel as well as Auberge's Cécile de France, and the short film anthology Paris je t'aime. 

 

The film certainly promises to be full of stars and since Klapisch can now be considered a name director on the European scene, it is likely that the film will premiere at the Berlin Film Festival, which is held exactly one week before its French premiere date on February 20. Coincidence?

 

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