Haven’t we seen “A Paris Education” before?
There tends to be a stereotype in film circles about what French film is like. Long scenes, black and white, everyone is cheating on their lovers…and A Paris Education really brings those cliches to new light. The most sympathetic characters are the ones on whom the film spends the least amount of time. Unfortunately, it seems that no matter how tired our smoking, partying protagonist gets, he still finds the energy to sleep with as many women as possible, convincing each that they are somehow special and having a real connection. As for his poor girlfriend back home, she bears the brunt of all this infidelity, and it still escapes my view as to how this film was billed as a love story.
No characters are particularly memorable, but Etienne does not have enough magnetism to hold the film together. Often side characters steal the spotlight, and it is welcome. Etienne’s film hovers around the theme of tortured love, and he continues to find endless women with whom to have sex. These aren’t connected, except that he makes sex sessions with multiple women into displays of false emotion or attempts to see them as spiritual bonding. Were it merely physical, he wouldn’t seem so hypocritical in his art. Perhaps that is the folly of youth the director means to demonstrate, but it could also be the folly of this thin plot.
From the wholly unnecessary black-and-white tint to the film- have you ever seen someone Skype in black and white? You aren’t missing much- to the droning debates about the “purpose” of film the students continuously take on, this movie is an overlong and much drawn out affair that could have been completed in half the time. Of course, one may argue that films don’t necessarily need a purpose. I would argue that that only counts for art, rather than an amalgamation of dated writing and odd camera angles. There isn’t more to say.