The concept is straight-forward: eighteen directors tell love stories about, to and set in Paris. However, 18 short films forced into a feature format could only work under very special circumstances. Matching some of the best directors in the business with superior acting talent has led to a film experience quite unlike any other. It’s not without precedence – 9’11”01 was a series of shorts that dealt with the attack on New York. Whereas that never fully escaped the notion of compilation, Paris, Je T’Aime is considerably more than a Tropfest DVD.  Each director, among them luminaries of international cinema like Walter Salles, Isabel Coixet, the Coen brothers, Christopher Doyle, Alfonso Cuaron and Wes Craven, tells a story of love set somewhere in Paris. The tone is warm, sad, spirited, melancholic, witty, divisive, subversive or silly depending on their tale and their take.

Grouped to harmonise, the viewing experience is rather like wandering the streets of Paris itself; encountering strangers, following their tale before wandering into and following another’s story. Some directors play according to type - Salles (Central Station) deals with ghettoised social inequity while Vincenzo Natali (Cube) finds Elijah Wood bewitched by a vampire. Others take a chance on new territory - Craven gets playfully comic at the grave of Oscar Wilde. An impressive cast features Steve Buscemi, Ben Gazzara, Gerard Depardieu, Gena Rowlands plus Marianne Faithfull in a drug-fuelled anecdote of missed opportunity. Even when the project veers dangerously toward tourism, it becomes exactly that in a sublimely ironic tale from Alexander Payne (Sideways). Paris, Je T’Aime may be a simple concept, but one that takes you on a complex and utterly enchanting journey through the city of light.

// COLIN FRASER