Paris Je T'aime, Once

A rash of bad weather that cancelled both Chorale rehearsal on Tuesday and Lenten Wednesday night activities at the church left me with not one, but count 'em, TWO free evenings in a row (normally unheard of this time of year!). I took this blessing as an opportunity to watch more movies (what else are you gonna do when everything is iced over?).

On Tuesday I watched Paris Je T'aime, an incredible little concept film where many famous directors were each assigned a different arrondissement, then asked to write and direct a five minute love story that takes place in that section of Paris (and they each had only two days to shoot their short film). Some of the stories were rather bizarre, some quite poignant, some had a surprising twist at the end - it was fascinating to see what each director chose to do both in terms of content and style, and the overall film had a rather Altman-esque flavor to it. Huge thumbs up, though word to the wise, if you don't speak French, you need to turn on the subtitle function - the subtitles didn't pop up automatically (perhaps because the dialogue throughout is a mixture of English and French?).

Then last night I watched Once, another independent film that flew under most people's radars, but is also highly worth experiencing. It traces the story of a couple of heartbroken musicians who are sort of stuck in their lives, each in their own way. What begins as a chance encounter on the streets of Dublin blossoms into a beautiful friendship and creative musical partnership, with each acting as a catalyst for change in the other's life, helping them both to get unstuck, as it were. The music is a powerful presence in the film (to the point you might call it the third leading character), and most of it was actually written by the two leads (Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova), who are songwriters, musicians, and friends in real life. It's gorgeous stuff, so now I'm coveting the soundtrack. . .big thumbs up for this one as well.