You don't talk about Art, you experience it!

Rating: 8/10 (3 December 2011)

Woody Allen, who directed "Manhattan" and "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" depict towns with such a unique talent they would always transcend their setting status and feel as real and lively as characters. And considering his enduring love for Paris, the most beautiful and artistically influential town in the world, I guess cinema was begging for an Allen film set in Paris, and 2011 was the year it was finally done.
With the talent I mentioned about characterizing towns, there was no doubt the movie would immediately make us fall in love with Paris, so the challenge was elsewhere, the movie had to maintain all the charm and wit used from Allen's incredible streak of Oscar-nominated scripts. "Midnight in Paris" needed to surprise, to bring out some unexpected elements, and on that level, I'm glad the marketing campaign labeled the film simply as a 'romantic comedy' failing to reveal what it was about in such a misleading way I'm sure it was deliberate, because I was not only surprised, but gladly too.
The movie starts with a predictable tribute to Paris, a series of postcards showing the most notorious places of the capital, Champs-Elysees, Sacré Coeur, Notre Dame, the Triumph Arc, Paris on a sunny day, Paris under the rain, Paris by night 'naturellement', and the opening to conclude with the most defining monument of Paris, the Eiffel Tower. It was a nice introduction, conducted by a jazzy music, Woody Allen knows how to marry the right music with the right place as he did with George Gershwin's rhapsodies in his "Manhattan", as if a love story should combine musical and geographical elements in love between each other. "Midnight in Paris" started like I would have expected, and I sincerely hoped it would be less touristic or less 'Paris for Dummies'.
Maybe I'm biased because I spent 8 years of my youth in Paris, and never felt like a tourist in there. I've always loved the charm of the unknown little streets, the pleasure to get lost and walk to discover some unexpected little treasures, avoiding buses, subways and traffic jams and simply walking at night on a bridge or a pedestrian street. I know Paris, and I know it's a town we love even more when we don't 'play the tourist'. Sure there are great places to visit, and I can't recommend enough to visit the Louvre or Montmartre, but don't ever take Paris for granted just because you saw the most iconic monuments. There's more to discover in Paris, and more to discover in you through Paris' eyes. So, I'm biased but not that I challenged Woody to surprise me about Paris but showing me something better than a human version of "The AristoCats".
So  "Midnight in Paris" starts with a conflict, Gil (Owen Wilson) is a screenwriter and wannabe writer who tells Inez his fiancée (Rachel McAdams), how in love he is with Paris, and she admits failing to see the appeal of the town, especially the overrated fascination for rainy Paris. She's a no-nonsense woman, who loves dances and nightclubs; he's nostalgic of the inter-war period Paris. Well, when a romantic comedy starts with a couple you wonder how they ever decided to marry. But from a director who made more than 40 films, it's less to create some stereotypical situations than a feeling of discomfort through the character of Gil, so blinded by his fascination that his personality can't emerge.
The movie echoes the beginning of one of his Woody Allen's most endearing classics "The Purple Rose of Cairo" featuring Mia Farrow as Cecilia, a timid character who could only express herself through her love for movies until her life changed when a movie character came off the screen and discovered with her the real world. In "Midnight in Paris", Gil also makes an extraordinary discovery, every night at midnight, a mysterious car embarks him to a fantastic ride in the 20's Paris, when it was an intellectual laboratory of creativity and revolutionary concepts that enriched the fields of culture, arts, science and entertainment, welcoming such influential artists as Salvador Dali, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Cole Porter, Pablo Picasso, when Art was something to experience, to live, not to be just pompously'described'.
In this journey, we discover the nostalgic side of Paris when it was synonym of jazz, surrealism, cubism, artistic revolution, fashion, fun, France, the World! Gil discusses literature, art, women, life with a scene-stealing Hemingway (Corey Stole), he explains his condition to the non-impressed surrealist Dali (Adrian Brody) and has the privilege to have his manuscript read by Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates). The movie doesn't avoid the love triangle, since he falls in love with Picasso and Modigiliani's mistress, the beautiful Adriana (Marion Cotillard). Adriana is interesting and intriguing as she also feels nostalgic toward Paris from the past, the Belle Epoque, the Paris of Gauguin, Moulin Rouge and Toulouse Lautrec. And Allen, with his unique talent, would surprise in one extraordinary twist showing that Paris would never lose its nostalgic appeal.
There were countless possibilities, the film could have explored the existential Paris, and featured Sartre, Boris Vian, Edith Piaf and Nat King Cole. Paris' charm is eternal although something might have been lost by the devastating effect of modernity, when an old and fashion café in the 20's becomes a lavatory in the 2010's. The 2010's aspect of the film isn't the highlight of the film anyway with its gallery of characters written more as plot devices: the irritating fiancée, the Parisian soul mate, making the 20's artist looking more authentic and I cared less about French-audience-pleasing Carla Bruni or Gad El Maleh's cameos. Paris stole the show!
The charm of the film relied on the depiction of the magical charm of Paris and as an artist myself, this vision reconciled me with the town and made me wonder if I would go living there again. Pourquoi pas?