Dans Paris

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Cast & Crew

Romain Duris

Paul

Louis Garrel

Jonathan

Guy Marchand

Mirko, le père

Joana Preiss

Anna

Marie-France Pisier

La mère

Alice Butaud

Alice

Héléna Noguerra

La fille en scooter

Christophe Honoré

Director

Christophe Honoré

Writer

Paulo Branco

Producer

Jean-Louis Vialard

Cinematographer

Chantal Hymans

Film Editing

Samuel Deshors

Production Design

Pierre Canitrot

Costume Design

Alex Beaupain

Original Music

Richard Rousseau

Casting

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Critic Reviews for Dans Paris

Audience Reviews for Dans Paris

• Jul 26, 2016

  Watching this is comparable to having a long sharp needle slowly going through your forehead for ninety minutes, but at least Louis Garrel is a breath of fresh air in this pretentious shot at a French New Wave film whose main character is insufferable (Honoré is no Godard).
  

  Super Reviewer
• Apr 27, 2010

  I especially like how this film begins, and at the turning point near the middle when things really began to take shape and come together which makes it what it is; an enjoyable piece of French cinema that deals with two brothers trying to make sense of their lives, and a father trying to hold things together despite the darkness that's all so prevalent in his family's existence. The loss of the teenage sister and daughter to suicide clearly always looms over them, but the brothers carry on with their lives consisting of relationships with young women, and the father keeps his head just above water to make sure his sons stick together and help one another in times of need. The one brother's marriage ends, and is forced to live with his father in which he spends much of his time alone and sleeping, becomes a possible suicide risk, and falls into far from what his ladie's man lifestyle was prior to his failed marriage. It's interesting how director Christophe Honore is able to catch certain moods with his choices of song and beautiful cinematography, and how he uses a telephone conversation with singing rather than dialogue which seems to show more of a connection between the characters involved. It's also interesting how the film comes full circle, shows how vital it is to be able to pull the good out of the bad, what the most important things in life are, and how we never know what's going to happen in our next moments.
  

  Super Reviewer
• Dec 04, 2008

  [font=Century Gothic]A tourist and a native look at the same city in radically different ways. A native knows the hidden secrets of a city and can find his way around well. A tourist is just interested in landmarks and cannot navigate without them such as the Eiffel Tower which is how "Dans Paris", a lugubrious and obvious movie where the characters stand exposed both physically and mentally, starts. After that particular cliched image, the next moment, inspired by the French New Wave, is just as unoriginal as Jonathan(Louis Garrel) addresses the camera directly to introduce a tangent off the main story.[/font] [font=Century Gothic][/font] [font=Century Gothic]Months previously, Jonathan's brother Paul(Romain Duris), a photographer, is living in the country with his girlfriend Anna(Joana Preiss), a model, and her son, Loup(Lou Rambert-Preiss).(Why do men always get to be the photographers while women have to settle for being the models?) In Paris in the present on December 23, neither Paul or Jonathan can take of himself and both live with their father(Guy Marchand). Paul is suffering from depression(which is understanble since this is during the holidays) while Jonathan lives totally carefree, getting in at all hours of the night. Apparently, he also has more sex appeal than James Bond. Is it just me or does there seem to be a bit of male chauvinism in evidence in the writing of this mediocre film? [/font]
  

  Super Reviewer
• Oct 11, 2007

  "<i>I think we grossly underestimate our sorrows, in general.</i>" Almost every single review I've read so far of <i>Dans Paris</i> has described it at least once as a homage to the French New Wave of the 1960s transplanted to the present day. Although I don't fancy being repetitive, that really is the best way to describe this film - as an authentic anthem and tribute to filmmakers such as Truffaut, Godard, Melville or Resnais, and their respective films. <a href="http://s172.photobucket.com/albums/w25/EarthlyAlien/?action=view¤t=LouisGarrelRomainDuris-DansParis-1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w25/EarthlyAlien/LouisGarrelRomainDuris-DansParis-1.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a> Writer-director Christophe Honoré's film is inspired by both his own family and his deep appreciation for French cinema. <i>Dans Paris</i> is a rarity of a film. Genuinely honest, unpretentious and delightful. Alternately sober and effervescent, heavy-going philosophizing or charmingly simple. It has a vivid emotional realism that is alternately funny and sad, and, at heart, inspirational. Every frame is gorgeously composed and it truly feels and looks and feels like a love letter to the City of Lights. Honoré reunites the male protagonists of his first and second features - <i>Seventeen Times Cécile Cassard</i> and <i>My Mother</i>, respectively - for his third, and by far best film. Romain Duris (<i>L'Auberge espagnole</i>, <i>The Beat My Heart Skipped</i>) plays Paul, the moody, depressed older brother to Louis Garrel's (<i>The Dreamers</i>, <i>Regular Lovers</i>) carefree hedonist Jonathan. If you add to those two already naturally talented young actors, and following its sincere homage to the French New Wave, veterans Guy Marchand and Marie-France Pisier as the brothers' divorced parents, you get <i>Dans Paris</i>' first quality: sublime, near-perfect acting. The film opens with three people in a bed (in a completely non-sexual way) on an early morning in a Parisian apartment; they are Jonathan, in the middle, one of his girlfriends, Alice (Alice Butaud) on one side and Paul on the other. He wakes up, tiptoes his way out of the bed onto the Eiffel Tower-view balcony and then addresses the audience, by looking directly into the camera. Garrel's affable Jonathan proposes to be a narrator in the film's story. Story that starts with Paul's recent life in the country and his failing relationship with his needy, unhappy girlfriend Anna (Joana Preiss). Christmas-time, Paul returns to the family flat in the city, where he takes over his little brother's room and refuses to get out of bed, much least to go out. Both Jonathan and their dad Mirko treat him kindly, but fear that he may go down the same path as his sister who committed suicide during a depression. Now, I bet that synopsis makes the film sound a bit... depressing. It is. And it isn't. Another one of the many understated qualities of <i>Dans Paris</i> is Honoré's spot-on understanding of depression. Paul's self-exile in the bedroom includes moments of engagement and even humour, providing a multidimensionality to a character who could have easily been just another bore stuck in stagnation. So, while it certainly has a dark, downbeat side for dealing with depression and melancholia, it also has a subtle optimistic and 'less French' side, with the message that anyone who can fall can also pick himself up. Louis Garrel continues to prove himself as one of the most talented and utterly charming young actors working today. From the opening, with Jonathan addressing the audience, he captures our affection in an almost unfairly easy and effortless way. His approach to life is high-spirited, to say the least. In less than 24 hours - the time in which the film takes place - he sleeps with no less than three girls, but Garrel and Honoré make sure we don't mistake him for a womaniser. Think of <i>The Dreamers</i>' Theo a lot more enthusiastic about life and living in the 21st century. The chameleon-like Romain Duris also shines next to him, delivering a performance of controlled extremes within the domain of pure truthfulness and intensity. One scene in particular, after a suicide attempt of Duris' character, between him and Garrel on a bathtub, is simply jaw-droppingly haunting and powerful. Honoré's mise en scène makes sure to capture Paris' magic, by glimpses at the Eiffel Tower through the family's windows or the boulevards Jonathan uses as his playground. A lot of things happen in <i>Dans Paris</i> that don't in ordinary films. Songs are spontaneously sung, books read quietly and aloud, and the Seine is jumped into several times. All of this seems quite 1960s. Then again, Honoré's choice to use cell phones as well as a lot of direct film references - including two large poster of Van Sant's <i>Last Days</i> (featuring Garrel's former co-star and friend Michael Pitt) and Cronenberg's <i>A History of Violence</i> - reminds us this is happening now, and places <i>Dans Paris</i> in a wider historical framework. All that said, the personal disconnections and interpersonal bonds the film explores are timeless. Cinema is timeless.
  

  Super Reviewer