Review of Paris 36 (2008) by Panta O — 06 Jul 2011
I was wondering how to write a review for this one... One wants very much to like French filmmaker Christophe Barratier's Paris 36. You can find musical numbers which are very enjoyable and actress Nora Arnezeder is a pleasure to watch. The music of the predominantly accordion scores and the cartoonish Parisian setting is precisely what majority of people could imagine when talking about the city of love and romance... but there's something which seems so ingenuine about the whole thing. The style of the film is uncomfortably detached from much of the subject matter.
The stoey is set against the backdrop of workers fighting for the right to unionize and the rising anti-Semitic sentiments of 1936, and the film had the potential to be a powerful and frightening historical account, but all this is glossed over with nostalgia. No intensity at all in the situations of social horrors of the period and the film sometimes switches from the children performing in the streets to brutal violence with no change in atmosphere. Imagine someone beat to death with a club after "Edelweise" number from Sound of Music - it's just out of place.
It wasn't a bad movie and it is unfortunate that the film suffers from a grievous duality of focus.
This review of Paris 36 (2008) was written by Panta O on 06 Jul 2011.
Paris 36 has generally received mixed reviews.
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