Being a cultured being of the world, I have seen a sliver of the offerings from recent French cinema. The main two takeaways I have from it is that they know how to do emotions but more importantly, we do not know how to elegantly translate their titles into English. Paris Memories is probably a slight exception in the fact that it evokes a romantic feel, just by association with Paris. Instead, we get an in depth and harrowing look into dealing with trauma and the frustration in not remembering that trauma.
Mia is an unfortunately timed protagonist, stepping into the wrong cafe, to shelter from the rain with some selfie taking tourists and Thomas, being forced to celebrate his birthday. She survives a mass shooting, in a visceral scene, watching the side characters you just met, get brutally killed off without a second thought.
We cut to an unspecified time jump, as Mia comes back into Paris, having spent time at her mothers. We watch as the distance is felt in her relationship to her husband Vincent. This theme follows through as we see her relationships change from what they were before.I wish this was explored a little bit more, especially with her marriage as I found their dynamic shift really interesting.
The story focuses a lot on the memory aspect of the attack, and trying to piece the events together, slowly gaining more information as Mia is reintroduced to her old life. While I think the mystery is intriguing, it is a little confusing to question what we saw in the beginning and what differences in the narrative there may be. If this were a third of the story and the rest were to focus on the aftermath of Mia dealing with these emotions or even dealing with the possible guilt of the accusation made against her.
The interactions she has with the support group feel the strongest to me, as they share what they remember and how they felt. Mia brings up thinking about a half eaten yogurt she left behind during the attack. I would like to address this because she is insane for leaving half a normal sized yogurt in the fridge. However, I think the idea of final thoughts and conversations is a morbidly beautiful device used throughout, as characters use this to feel closure and connections to the ones they lost.
I was perfectly satisfied with the camera work of this film, it was there to tell the story for the most part and didn’t get in the way or take over. The time where it felt most important was in the actual attack as it hid down with Mia and almost cowered away from the action, leaving us without context of where the shooter was for most of it. The music did fall victim to the classic, sad movie “lets do strings” thing. At times, it whined about how sad things were and how much it really wanted you to watch how sad they were. For the most part though, it lulled in the background to differencate between the noise and the suddens cuts to siilence, making you pay more attention to these particularly emotional moments.
I’m glad I got to see this right next to an emotionally reactive older woman, so I knew I was on the right track when feeling sad or frustrated when things weren’t piecing together for Mia. I’m excited to see what this director can do in the future with some of the ideas they brought to the film.
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