Media Literacy

Rating: 6/10 (1 October 2012)

Midnight in Paris was released in 2011. This film mixes comedy, fiction and love, all under the signature of Woody Allen. The film tries to reflect a utopian view of "The City of Light" where everything can happen if you dream, and of course, if you are a true romantic. The film is essentially about meeting with the past to be in peace with the present. It is interesting how the main point of the movie is not getting stuck in one glorious moment, to move on in life, yet it seems like the whole setting of the movie has an obsessive relationship with the city of Paris. All the shots of Paris, especially the ones from the 1920's, appear with a sense of gold color to build the image of a romantic, sensual city where anything can happen. The film definitely tries to give out the image of a place to fall in love. A little bit into the movie, Inez decides to leave Gil and go partying with Paul and his wife. When they get inside the taxi, Inez is the one sitting in between the couple which gives the audience the impression of some kind of adultery about to happen in between Inez and Paul. We can classify our protagonist (Gil) as a pure romantic, even when his wife has clearly cheated on him, he does not want to admit it until someone else tells him. He lives in his own little world of beauty and romance where everything seems to be more appreciated the older it becomes. He soon realizes that something is missing in his life as a Hollywood screenwriter, and he is not satisfied with his job, in his attempt to pursue something to make him happy he decides to start writing a novel. He doesn't realize that his novel is nothing else but the reflection of his own life. He lives in a perpetual stage of nostalgia, wishing to live in "the good old times". The main reason for this to happen is because of his non-fulfilling life that he definitely needs a change, and he comes to that conclusion in Paris. There is a very well defined classification of people in this movie. We find the empirical, unromantic and materialistic side of the world. This group is represented by Inez, her family, and Paul. On the other side we find the intellectual, idealist and romantic type of people. This group is represented by Gil and all the artists. Also at the end of the movie we see those two worlds collide, presenting the beautiful young woman who seems to be the perfect fit for Gil. She is a dreamer, she likes "Paris under the rain" and she is from the same decade as Gil which shows that at the end, people can find happiness if they keep their eyes open. It is quite obvious that the director tried to make the two different kinds of people very weighty in the movie. Inez strongly represents the empirical part of the society while Gil represents the complete opposite. Both personalities are exaggerated to show the division of the world between believers and non believers of love. This particular young couple has an interesting reaction to Paris. It is known that Paris is the city of love, many couples escape to that romantic place to fix their problems. The surprising component of this movie is that Paris does nothing but tear apart their relationship. They come to realize that they are complete opposite and that their relationship has no future. The city of love, teaches Gil that his love is not meant to be. There are certainly many different characters in this film. Sometimes it can even be a little confusing to keep track of all the people and everything that goes on, but it also seems like every one of those characters, with their different personalities and their different views of the world, have something to provide to the movie. Although they contribute to the film some of the character's view points are irrelevant to the story. What Gil believes is love at the start of the movie, progressively changes. He realizes that everything he thought was love is wrong. In order to find true love he had to find himself, which he did every midnight in Paris.