Paris, je t'aime (2006)

4/5

Paris, je t'aime consists of 18 stories all set in Paris that discuss some form of love. Some of the films intermingle those two requirements, but a lot of them don't. Being a compilation of so many different filmmakers, naturally some will be better than others. This movie has its fair share of bad apples, but also good apples and amazing apples, which made the overall experience really enjoyable. My favorites were by the Coen brothers (Tuileries), Alfonso Cuaron (Parc Monceau), and Alexander Payne (14e arrondissement). Close seconds belong to Tom Tykwer (Faubourg Saint-Denis), Oliver Schmitz (Place des fêtes), Sylvain Chomet (Tour Eiffel), and Walter Salles (Loin du 16e). Most of the rest were decent, and some were merely adequate, but Christopher Doyle's Port de Choisy (Chinatown) stands as far and away my least favorite of them all. And this seems to be the consensus that most people come to after seeing the film, but the great thing about this movie is that there are so many different stories you're almost bound to love one and like most of the others. After you're done you get a wonderful patchwork of emotions and ideas about what Paris is like ... and what love is like. This is by far the best compilation work I've ever seen and is definitely worth a watch. Think of it as a good Love Actually.

IMDb link: http://imdb.com/title/tt0401711/

Central Station (1998)

4/5

What I like most about Central Station is that it has the courage to be realistic instead of sappy and commercial. The heroine is an unattractive, unmarried woman who's gotten used to making a quick buck learning about peoples' lives and deluding herself into thinking she has the power to decide their fates. (She writes letters for people, but sometimes doesn't mail them.) She changes over the course of the movie, but not all at once, and not without making mistakes and falling back a few steps every once in a while. And that's really what this entire story is about, to me; the evolution of this one woman. What I think elevates the movie is that there is this much depth given to one or two other characters as well, so multiple people on multiple viewings can extract multiple meanings from it and be touched by it in different ways.

The music was usually very effective, but had a tendency to be incredibly overbearing and misplaced, which spelled melodrama (although thankfully the rest of the movie did not succumb to such misspelling). The cinematography was also quite good, although again had a tendency to be too "Hollywood." Sometimes it seemed as if the film wandered or took a while to find its place, but all in all it was exceptional emotional filmmaking.

IMDb link: http://imdb.com/title/tt0140888/