From Anne Hornaday of The Washington Post:



“Cinematic ‘Paris’ Is A Must-See Destination



Even in its opening mash-up of images and musical styles, it’s clear that “Paris” will both indulge and explode the city’s mythology. In a frenetic series of scenes, director C?dric Klapisch announces that his movie will be set in many cities: the Paris of high fashion, the Paris of deeply embedded history, the Paris of love, the Paris of loss, aristocratic Paris, the Paris of African and Arab immigrants. Filming in some of the city’s most familiar precincts, from the mansard-roof apartment buildings to the marketplace at M?nilmontant, Klapisch captures both the picture-postcard ideal of the city and the candid truth behind it, managing to enhance both images.



It takes more than one or two characters to lead viewers on such a far-ranging, polyglot tour, and luckily Klapisch is an expert at deploying densely layered ensembles, as he proved in “L’Auberge Espagnole,” his lovely 2002 ode to young expats. In “Paris,” we follow the stories of several dyads, but most of the action centers on a dancer named Pierre (Romain Duris), who has just received a troubling diagnosis from his cardiologist, and his sister Elise (Juliette Binoche), a single mother who moves in with him with her three children. While an ensemble of attractive characters weave in and out of each others’s lives (Melanie Laurent, of “Inglourious Basterds,” and Francois Cluzet, from “Tell No One,” are only two), Pierre observes the comings and goings from his aerie, his elegiac attachment to his city infusing “Paris” with a contagious sense of wistful romance. (Some of the movie’s most evocative scenes transpire outside Pierre’s purview, in the wholesale market that comes alive on the outskirts of Paris after hours.)



Duris has starred in several of Klapisch’s previous films, but he is best known for his captivating turn in 2005’s fabulous “The Beat That My Heart Skipped.” He has one of the most fascinating faces to be found on the screen today, one that possesses a transfixing, ineffable combination of beauty and homeliness. His features are on gratifyingly full view here, but the real revelation in “Paris” is that Duris is a pretty good dancer, as he proves in Pierre’s brief flashbacks of his former glitzy glory.



Klapisch mostly succeeds masterfully at proving his modest but also ambitious thesis: that people live in Paris, die in Paris, fall in and out of love in Paris, come to Paris invested with dreams and delusions, and the city accepts it all, sometimes rudely but ultimately with a singular kind of grace. “Paris” is a funny, sad, romantic and deeply felt love letter to a great city. If you can’t book a trip now, it’s the next best thing.”






From Roger Ebert:



“At the end of “Paris,” a character whose future is uncertain rides in a taxi through the city and glimpses some of the film’s other characters going about their lives. He doesn’t know them, but we do, and seeing them so briefly is enough to make the film’s point: We are here, we strive, we love, we laugh, we fail, we are sad, sometimes we look at the world and smile for no particular reason.



Here is a film about a group of Parisians. It opens with a sweeping shot of Paris from the atop the Eiffel Tower. The characters don’t have interlocking lives; it’s not that kind of film. They have parallel lives. The purpose of Cedric Klapisch, the writer-director, is to make a symphonic tribute to the city he loves, and each character is a movement.



That said, every character has life and depth. It’s unusual for an episodic film to involve us so well in individual lives; as the narrative circles through their stories, we’re genuinely curious about what will happen next.



The central character is Pierre (Romain Duris), who is a dancer in his 30s told that he has little time left. Only a heart transplant can save him. His sister Elise (Juliette Binoche) brings her two daughters and comes to live with him, and they try to cheer each other. He spends much time standing on his balcony, observing life in the street. She’s rebounding from a bad marriage and considers herself finished with men.



We also meet a famous Parisian historian named Roland (Fabrice Luchini), whose lectures are so literate and certain he seems to be reading from a teleprompter scrolling in his mind. He is very alone. Well into his 50s, he becomes obsessed with a pretty student and anonymously sends her florid romantic compliments by text. Then he lurks nearby to watch her reading them, Creepy. Meanwhile, he’s starring in a TV documentary series about the city.



His younger brother is Philippe, played by Francois Cluzet, the Dustin Hoffmanish star of “Tell No One” (2006). Phillipe is an architect, a father in waiting, an encourager who senses Roland’s discontent. Elise finds herself attracted to Jean (Albert Dupontel), a vendor in one of the many Paris street food markets. Jean is divorced from Caroline (Julie Ferrier), but they’re still friendly. Still, they don’t seem to have a future.



There are several smaller characters, including a bakery owner (Karin Viard) who has outspoken prejudices about people from any part of France that is not Paris, and yet is open-minded enough to praise a young employee from North Africa who is a reliable worker. I’ve meet French people like that: Not racist, but tactlessly opinionated–or particular, as they might prefer.



All of these stories are told against the backdrop of Paris, a city Klapisch loves with a passion. He hasn’t made a travelogue with beauty shots, however, but set his story in very specific places: Streets, a university, cafes, restaurants, dawn at the vast Rungis, the wholesale food market that replaced Les Halles. There is even a scene set in the catacombs, the bones and skulls of Parisians past neatly stacked behind the Professor.



The characters have love, fear it, or seek it. Only one has a desperate problem. None is quiet satisfied. They have a daily reprieve from illness or death, but never think in those terms–except for Pierre, who is forced to. They go to work, home again, to their spouses or lovers or empty flats. They move easily through the city, and we are reminded that in Paris, traditionally a city of tiny apartments, the cafes served as living rooms. You’re not buying a coffee, you’re renting a table, and it’s yours for as long as you sit there.



I love Paris in the same way Klapisch does, for the concentration and intensity of its daily life and street theater. A modern place like downtown Houston seems to me an unlovely prospect, all concrete, no shadows. Why do modern corporations envision their headquarters as free-standing tombstones instead of friendly neighbors?



Viewing the film’s with the city, I was reminded of another film, “When The Cat’s Away” (1996). That was the one about the young woman who leaves town and entrusts her cat with a neighboring cat lady. When she returns, this old lady is heartbroken: The cat has run away. The entire neighborhood gets caught up in the search, including a simple-minded fellow who helpfully risks his life on rooftops, usually in search of the wrong cat. I looked up the film, and discovered it was by Cedric Klapisch. There you go.”






From Mick LaSalle of the SF Chronicle:



In cities, sometime at night, sometimes early in the morning when they’re just waking up, a feeling comes. It’s partly an awareness, partly a longing - it’s the sense that, if you could only pull back and watch it from a slight distance, you might be able to hold the entire city in your mind: all its pain, all its striving, all its romance, all its drama.



“Paris” is writer-director Cédric Klapisch’s attempt to do precisely that, to stand back and capture the entire essence of a city. It’s a monumental and ultimately impossible task, but he comes as close as anybody to achieving it. And he does so with an all-star cast made up of some of the brightest talents in France.



Klapisch’s masterstroke was to place at the center of a movie a man, forced by circumstances, to stop and simply observe. Romain Duris plays a former dancer awaiting a heart transplant, who spends the day looking down from the window of his Paris apartment, watching people frantically going about their lives.



Klapisch doesn’t do the corny thing: He doesn’t have all the other characters be people that Pierre (Duris) sees from the street or imagines in his mind. That would have been sentimental and disastrous. Yet simply by putting Pierre in that top-floor balcony, looking down, Klapisch provides us with the perspective with which we view the other characters - with distance, with affection and a bit of puzzlement. Why do people make themselves so miserable? Do they think they’re going to live forever?



Juliette Binoche, who stars as Pierre’s older sister, continues to be a marvel. Somehow she conveys an impression of ethereality, even though she’s almost as earthy as Anna Magnani. She’s also more beautiful now than she was 20 years ago, and no, this is no clumsy attempt at gallantry. Just get out the videotape.



Newly anointed star Melanie Laurent (”Inglourious Basterds”) plays a college student who, without meaning to, catches the eye of her middle-aged history professor (the long-suffering comic actor Fabrice Luchini). To see Laurent here is to understand what attracted Quentin Tarantino. Laurent’s quality of reserve and careful observation is the same, whether dealing with high-ranking Nazis or a professor going through a hellish midlife crisis. Another familiar face, François Cluzet, plays the professor’s brother, a well-meaning architect.



Also check out comic actress Karin Viard, who was nominated for a César Award (the French Oscar) for playing a racist, oblivious baker. It’s a small role but very funny.



Urban life can be a series of collisions, but mostly it’s a series of near misses - friendships that might have blossomed, relationships that might have happened. Klapisch captures the bittersweet quality of those human contacts that seem to hold promise, but life goes by too fast for them to take root. The beauty of Paris, which is fully conveyed in the film, only emphasizes the sadness of those missed opportunities. It’s a place of commerce, but it looks like it was made for pleasure.”