The 50 Day Movie Challenge asks one question every day, to be answered by a few paragraphs and a clip, if possible. Click here for the full list of questions.
Today’s prompt: What movie world would you most like to live in?
This answer is certainly Paris, because I am utterly in love with cinematic Paris. I like real Paris, too, but the Paris that’s in the movies is magical. Tip for screenwriters: set your film in Paris, and I am 95% guaranteed to like it. But I’m probably supposed to choose just one film for this question, and I’m not sure I can do that. From B&W French New Wave films with intellectual (or pseudo-intellectual) youths wandering in and out of coffeeshops to Americans in Paris like Funny Face or, well, An American in Paris to more recent depictions like Amelie or Paris, je t’aime or Avenue Montaigne and even Ratatouille, cinematic Paris is heavenly. I want to go to there.
This is the final short in the compilation Paris, je t’aime (directed by Alexander Payne), about a middle-aged American woman traveling alone to Paris for the first time. She narrates her experiences in voiceover as an essay for her French class, in a very American accent. Though you don’t see too much of Paris in this short, and it’s a bit on the sad side, it’s a perfect capper to the film and expresses the way foreigners (like me) fall in love with Paris.