AMAZING | Paris 36 | Gerard Jugnot, Kad Merad

Wonderful and Entertaining | Paris 36 | Gerard Jugnot, Kad Merad

DVDs:


	• Paris 36 Gerard Jugnot, Kad Merad Sony Pictures, 2009 average customer review:based on 11 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Excellent views of Paris

If you have been there you will truly enjoy the scenery and taste of the Paris culture.

AMAZING

QUIT FUSSING AND USE SUBTITLES...GO TO SPECIAL FEATURES TO SEE HOW & WHY THIS COMES TO FRUITATION...SINCE SEE HOW AND WHERE!!!! REMEMBER THE STAR WAS ONLY 17 WHEN THIS WAS MADE...SPECIAL FEATURES TEEL YOU A LOT..IF YOU GO THERE!!

Wonderful and Entertaining

I'm not a real foriegn language film buff but just saw two and this one was terrific. You get to know all the characters because they are all so well played. The film has sweet, but definitely edgy, innocent quality, with a healthy dose of pathos, which is unique, which is why I loved it. Nora Arnezeder is absolutely charming, beautiful and talented. This story is about a down and out producer director in an era when his life-long workplace--a theatre--is shut down and ultimately bought by the films antagonist, a local patrician property owner. The poor producer, without work, actually loses custody of his young son, whom he loves more than life, to his promiscuous and roving wife, who later settles down with a stable gentleman. With a backdrop of a France struggling with an emerging communistic labor movement, and the attendant social upheaval, several separate love stories emerge--the producer with his elusive theatre, the young passionate communistic with the glorious Douce (Nora Arnezeder) and the world of entertainment, the elderly hermit musical savant, who was in love with Douce's mother, who left years before, with his memories of her and then Douce and her talent, and the evil patrician, who is enamoured with Douce for all the wrong reasons. The running plot is how these relatively unknow actors and performers seek to redeem their theatre by being successful, per the patrician's offer, all the while he is calculating for the theatre's failure and to own Douce physically if not emotionally. This film is great in french, acted fabulously, has drama, comedy, sorrow and triumph, and wonderful music.

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Second Feature Film from the Director of "The Chorus": Beautiful But Overwrought

"Paris 36" ("Faubourg 36") is the second feature film of Christophe Barratier. As in his previous film, critically acclaimed "The Chorus" that was a huge hit in France in 2004, music plays a significant role in "Paris 36" and the soundtrack music is gorgeous. However, as to its storytelling, "Paris 36" is a tad disappointing overall.

As its title suggests, the film is set in and around 1936, the era of economic hardship and political unrest. Pigoil (Gérard Jugnot, who played the music teacher in "The Chorus") is a dedicated veteran worker at the Chansonia, an old theater in Paris suburb, which has to be closed because of financial difficulties. Pigoil, now unemployed, also loses custody of his only son to his wife who has just left him for another man. But because of one incident at the now-closed theater, Pigoil and his friends including hot-tempered stage technician Milou (Clovis Cornillac) and good-natured but incredibly unfunny entertainer Jacky (Kad Merad) decide to revive their beloved theater.

"Paris 36" sometimes makes me feel like watching classic movies. The gorgeous production designs are something you rarely see in these days (the set was constructed in studio in Prague). The photography (by Tom Stern, "Changeling") is moody and elegant. With meticulous visual details that conjure up a period, and great numbers that you would be humming after leaving the theater, "Paris 36" is always nice to watch and hear.

What "Paris 36" doesn't have is a good script. Personally I don't dislike its old-fashioned melodramatic stories, but the overwrought script suffers from too many familiar narrative devices and (mostly flat) characters. The film employs multiple narrative threads - about Pigoil and his accordion-playing son Jojo, Milou and his romance with the theater's new singer Douce (Nora Arnezeder), etc. - but each subplot resolves too quickly, and doesn't allow us to know these characters enough.

I liked "The Chorus" and I still remember its last scene which was truly moving. I can tell you the last scene of "Paris 36" is touching, almost equally. Again I say, the music is wonderful in "Paris 36." But I think the film could have been much better with a simpler story.

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French musical history

When a French vaudeville theater is closed by the new management, the stagehands manage to reopen it. Things look bad until a beautiful and very talented singer takes the stage.

Genre: Drama
Rating: PG13
Release Date: 11-AUG-2009
Media Type: DVD

reviews: page 1, 2, 3

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