Paris Is Happening

The less it explains why, the better it works. The first quarter of an hour, which describes incomprehensible trajectories, is masterful. The interlude with attempts to philosophize is weaker. The second half in the department store is unbalanced, but as pure escapism without rational explanations, why not? Bonello filmed an Elephant in Dawn of the Dead, but unfortunately a bad reality got into it and Paris really caught fire. Nocturama doesn't say much, but he is able to impress. It is such a hermetically sealed vessel in which every revolt is futile, every plan ill-conceived, and every exit leads back to the same room. There is strength and weakness in this. A gleaming nightmare about a world that has an abundance and a deficiency at the same time. Filming it a year after the London Riots would have made Bertrand a generational visionary. This way, he’s just a stylish poet who came late. (11/21/2016)

To start with, it must be said that there’s a lot of crap and piss at Cannes; and now we can get to the film. The long tracking shots, stoic characters, unspoken motivations, and only haphazardly defined motivations suggest that Bonello is working with deliberate detachment so as to create an untenable and broadly generalizable bit of bleak social reflection. And in some respects he succeeds, because all the guesswork as to their motivations, the ruthless behavior of the characters, the hermetic claustrophobia of the shopping mall mannequins and the problematic police intervention at the end are uncomfortably thought provoking and certainly raise questions. But the problem isn't primarily that he's unwilling to answer them, even outside the confines of the film, but that he hasn't grasped that he's making a pure thriller, and one that, whether you like it or not, has its own rules for achieving a suitable impact. While in many stretches Paris Is Happening may resemble Van Sant's Elephant (though that falls into its own category of "film space"), it rather runs up against the same thing that last year's formulaic one-take Victoria does, which is to be unable or unwilling to take formal shortcuts. Victoria had the problem that it simply had to be shot in a single continuous take, so there wasn't much that could be done with it; Paris Is Happening chose to be that way voluntarily, which is why, as much as the film has all the premises of a thriller (it takes place over a few hours, the characters are taken out of their world, they act in extremes and, above all, make very human mistakes and don't behave rationally, but it's understandable given the situation), it refuses to embrace the genre, probably to avoid devaluing itself in its own eyes. And yet this often turns it into a pompous bore with irritating protagonists with no one and nothing to latch onto. (08/01/2017)

An unpleasantly disturbing film, which has such an interesting stylization that you wonder for a while if maybe it's not all improvisation. But it does break at the right moment and becomes quite impressive. It's a film about our times. Unfortunately, I felt like it didn't say anything new, but only showed what we already have here. And maybe a little bit of why. (02/27/2017)

Very stylish! I let myself be drawn in and immersed. It’s an explosive topic (sorry for the pun) of the times executed without restrain by an evidently confident filmmaker. It doesn’t dive very deep, which many people will criticise, but in this case I didn’t need it. By the way, the genesis of the project dates back to before the events that it’s so reminiscent of, so there’s no exploitation of a tragedy for artistic purposes. The scenery of many familiar places in Paris is also a personal bonus. (02/03/2017)

It is certainly an interesting film, which from the very beginning keeps the viewer in suspense as to what will actually come from the events around the disparate young individuals. The middle passage in the department store drags a bit, but it is probably necessary for the final twenty minutes to have the right punch, thanks to the appropriately heavy atmosphere. The film is quite clearly a reflection on a hot topic of our time, which pits the welfare of the Western world and the issue of immigration against each other. Although it glides lightly over the surface and provides almost no explanations, surprisingly it's more than enough. Let everyone make up their own minds. (04/26/2020)