Archive for May, 2006

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Under The Roofs Of Paris

There’s a character in Under The Roofs Of Paris who bears a remarkable resemblance to John Cleese, I have no point in bringing this up other than I found it amusing.

This charming little movie from the 1930’s is one of the early “talkies” and it’s interesting to see how it still retains much of the conventions of silent film, whilst seeming to be a little uncertain what to do with this new fangled sound thing. Consequently music is featured prominently. Not a musical, per se, but many of the scenes focus around groups of people singing a song as this must have seemed like the most obvious thing to do with the new technology.

The story revolves around a song selling Frenchman and his pursuit of a beautiful young woman who is being pursued by the evil John Cleese look alike. Complications ensue. It’s most worth watching for the glimpses of Parisian life and cityscapes from the early part of the 20th century. Fun movie.

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Paris Wine Muesum

I had no idea there was a wine museum in Paris, but I probably should have assumed…

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Trip: Postponed

The sad decision has been made to postpone the trip until the Spring. Most likely early to mid may.

While it is painful to have to delay the trip, it does offer a couple of advantages, the primary being we can go for longer. I’m very excited about the possibility of going for maybe 14-18 days instead of only 10. I will leave it up to Irene as to where else we might include on our trip.

In the meantime, we will take a different, shorter, cheaper vacation in September.

Never fear, I will continue to plan and post about those plans in the meantime.

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Blue

There’s a scene in Blue where Juliette Binoche is sitting on her own in a café, she orders a coffee and when it arrives she picks up a sugar cube and dips the corner of it into the cup. The camera holds on the cube as it slowly absorbs the coffee and turns brown. It’s little moments like these that make this film such a pleasure.

Binoche plays Julie Vignon, the wife of France’s most celebrated composer. The movie opens with a car accident that claims the life of her husband and child and leaves Vignon in the hospital. When she recovers she decides to start her life over, selling her house and all her possessions and moving into a small Paris apartment.

The plot revolves around her attempts to get her life together and various outsiders attempts to her husbands final composition which was almost complete at the time of his death. By the end of the movie we’re not entirely sure that it wasn’t in fact Vignon herself who was responsible for her husbands music.

It’s a beautiful film, and I highly recommend it. It is the first in the Three Colors Trilogy by Krzysztof Kieslowski. They are all well worth seeing, but Blue is the only one set primarily in Paris.

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