Romance Is Back In Town

Rating: Null/10 (24 July 2004)

This is a real breath of fresh air in a movie climate grown stagnant with in-yer-face encounters that pass for love stories. Superficially it couldn't be more simpler; the two protags who were last seen nine years ago in Vienna now meet again in Paris and schmooze about love and life and the whole damn thing. And that's it - superficially. But underneath there's a whole lotta stuff going down. A coupla weeks ago in this same spot I blasted that bad joke Godard for his pathetic use of meaningless long takes in his debut film, Brainless. Here's how it SHOULD be done, Jean-Luc: The camera LEADS Jesse and Celine through tiny Parisienne thoroughfares but we don't really NOTICE because all the time they're walking they're TALKING, so where the aimless rambling of Belmondo made you AWARE that the camera was following him to no purpose, the dialogue that Delpy and Hawke lay on us has the opposite effect, making us FORGET that there's even a camera THERE, let alone what it's doing. There's so much to praise here, not least the performances in what is virtually a two-hander, if there are a brace of more natural-seeming performances out there than these two then I'm ready to show my ass in Macey's window. Just when you thought it couldn't get any better Delpy lays a song on us, in her own, undubbed voice, words and music by one J. Delpy (in real life she has just released an album of self-composed songs) and for perhaps the first time (her English is THAT good) we remember that she is actually French. The voice is warm with just a touch of Peggy Lee wistfulness about it and rounds off a perfect film. 9/10