Wednesday 13 January 2021

2 Days in Paris (2007 Julie Delpy & scr, ed)

After an unsuccessful two weeks in Venice, Adam Goldberg and Julie Delpy stop off in Paris en route back to New York. There he meets her colourful family and encounters some of her past boyfriends, leading to good line "There is a small world network, but it just contains your love life". It's not a great Paris film because we don't see enough of it, though there are several amusing encounters with contentious taxi drivers.  Delpy's character is quite a pain in the arse, really; I think if I were either one of the couple I wouldn't be going out with the other - but that's the point she's making, isn't it (especially in the last scene) - sometimes people who don't seem to fit together just need to be together regardless.

In a way it inhabits the same kind of space between comedy and drama as the Tamara Jenkins films we've been watching lately.

I know what she means about being in a new place and spending all your time photographing it and not being there - well, I can vaguely remember the concept of foreign travel.

Daniel Brühl has an amusing cameo. Her father is Albert Delpy and her mother is Marie Pillet - her real parents (also both in Before Sunset). You wonder whether it's their real apartment. (It was.)

Delpy: "I watched Jaws four times before I did my film, because I thought Frenchmen are a bit like sharks... [Not sure if this is intended as a joke.] We shot guerilla style, sometimes, without permits. And we shot in HD, using a Sony 750 camera – a camera that you can bring into small places. I also wanted to use a long lens. So the person is in focus but everything in the background is out of focus and blurry. That way it feels like you’ve stolen the shot in the streets of Paris. It’s got the vibe of a documentary style.
I knew that with the 20 days we had to shoot…we’re not going to be able to achieve like a perfect clean look anyway. So why not take the decision to make it like that? It works with the subject matter of the film." [Also thought it might be that you don't see gawkers in the background looking at the film being shot.]
Indiewire interview. 

It was a big hit. And there was a 2012 sequel Two Days in New York.

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