THIS omnibus was devised to feature 18 short films, one set in each of Paris's arrondissements. As happens with portmanteau pictures, this valentine to the French capital takes the form of a degustation menu, serving small portions that would be insubstantial on their own but quite satisfying together.
Inevitably, the standard is uneven, but with each helping running no longer than six or seven minutes, there is always the promise of more appetising fare to follow.
Tapping into the notion that Paris is the most romantic city in the world, the recurring theme is of people falling in or out of love. Spanish director Isabel Coixet turns that concept on its head in her touching film of a man (Sergio Castellitto) about to ask his wife (Miranda Richardson) for a divorce when she makes a revelation that changes his mind.
In the segment co-directed by Frédéric Auburtin and Gérard Depardieu, the atmosphere is bittersweet when a long-married couple (Gena Rowlands, who scripted it, and Ben Gazzara) meet in a restaurant on the night before they sign their divorce papers. Tom Tykwer cheekily cheats in his picture of a young woman (Natalie Portman) breaking up with her blind linguist boyfriend (Melchior Beslon) by flashing back through their relationship in breathlessly speeded-up footage.
Young love blossoms in Gurinder Chadha's sunny, appealing picture of a French student (Cyril Descours) smitten by a Muslim (Leila Bekhti) as he fumblingly helps to rearrange her hijab. In Gus Van Sant's intriguing vignette, a gay young Frenchman (Gaspard Ulliel) can't resist chatting up a printer's apprentice (Elias McConnell) and is puzzled by the passive response he gets.
That vignette is one of several dealing with the breakdown of communication through language difficulties. In one of the most entertaining segments, set in the Tuileries metro station and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, Steve Buscemi plays an American in Paris who learns the hard way to heed his guidebook advice on avoiding eye contact with strangers.
Some directors offer segments that are disappointingly slight (Alfonso Cuarón), inane (Christopher Doyle), pretentious (Nobuhiro Suwa) or trite (Vincenzo Natali's vampire yarn with Elijah Wood). Surprisingly few address the city's immigrant population; the most effective of these is Walter Salles and Daniela Thomson's tender picture of a young South American woman (Catalina Sandino Moreno) singing a lullaby to her baby before going out to work as a nanny and reprising the song to her wealthy employer's child.
The menu saves the best course for last, as Alexander Payne (who has a cameo as Oscar Wilde in Wes Craven's segment set in the Pere Lachaise cemetery) affectionately observes a lonely, middle-aged Denver postal worker (endearingly played by Margo Martindale) as she delivers a voiceover monologue in engagingly clumsy French about her first European holiday.
Bon appetit.
MICHAEL DWYER
