No, not me. I've been here for six days on this trip to Paris, with one more to go. The Subject line is the name of the movie I saw tonight. Two movies since I've been in Paris...two absolute winners.
Julie Delpy had me with "Killing Zoe." She walked into Eric Stoltz's hotel room and into my dreams with her striptease done to "Nosferatu" on the TV in the background and Tanger- ine Dreamlike techno on the soundtrack. And since then I've seen her in a number of other films, and she never disap- points. Never. That's something I say about very few actors and actresses. So when I made my way to Odéon tonight in search of a movie, and saw *her* film -- as writer and director -- on one of the marquees, I was on it like les mouches sur le merde. It did *not* disappoint. It's another wonderful film, one that I can recommend heartily. Half in French, half in English, it's the story of a French girl who keeps an apartment in Paris although she lives ten months a year in the US, and her American boyfriend, doing the titular 2 days in Paris. He speaks no French, and is a tad...uh...insecure, and so when the trip to Paris turns into a seeming marathon of her running into her old lovers, angst ensues. But so does deep, side-splitting comedy. Some of the lines, both in English and in French, are simply To Die For. As indicated by her interviews on television and in print, Julie Delpy is one smart cookie. This film captures and makes light-hearted fun of both the American and the French tendencies towards self-absorption and weirdness. As romantic comedies go, it's not quite up in the Pantheon with "When Harry Met Sally," but damned if it's not in the same general neighborhood. Delpy really has a *feel* for both the male and the female side of the bipolar Tantric juxta- position of gender neuroses. The guy makes you cringe and vascilate between distaste and compassion for his clueless- ness (as guys are wont to do), and her character (she stars in the film she created) is not above having a few...uh... flamboyant moments herself. The scene in the restaurant with her just *losing it* because an ex with whom she still has issues after seven years is seated at the next table is nothing short of hilarious. It's right up there with Sally's "I'll have what she's having" scene in the New York deli. All in all, I've done well with my movie choices on this trip to Paris. And Julie Delpy has done well with her transition from comediènne to réalizateur. If she continues with directing, she could actually become a force in the modern cinema. This is really an auspicious start.
