Tales of ordinary sadness

It's not quite yet a cinematic cliché, but the format chosen by Cédric Klapisch (Les Poupées russes (2005), Ni pour, ni contre (bien au contraire) (2002))  in Paris has antecedents in films as diverse as Robert Altman's Short Cuts (1993), Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction (1994), and most recently Alejandro González Iñárritu's Babel (2006), namely seemingly diverse stories that are in fact linked by chains visible only to viewers – no man is an island, as John Donne put it.

But, while Paris's predecessors to a large extent opted more for sensationalism to make their point, Klapisch's film has a quiet yet affecting sobriety to it, both in perspective and performances.

Klapisch regular Romain Duris plays Pierre, a dancer who needs a heart transplant – his chances of surviving, even should he find a donor, are iffy.  
Juliette Binoche plays his sister Élise, a social worker who brings her children to live with her ailing brother. From their window, they watch the developing love life of Laetitia (Mélanie Laurent), who's hitched to Rémy (Joffrey Platel), but is also being wooed by Sorbonne Paris history professor and longtime bachelor Roland Verneuil (Fabrice Lucchini), currently undergoing a mid-life crisis and opening his heart to a psychiatrist (Maurice Bénichou) while he's working on a soul-destroying 'popular' TV series about his area of expertise...and so on.

There are other stories at play here, but to list them all would be pointless. The point is, however, that Klapisch, a gifted director, does make you care. He conveys the surface banality of everyday life, yet in so doing makes you eager to learn more. This is precisely why so much of the film remains unresolved; the director's perspective and realistically fluid camerwork encouraged this reviewer to leave the cinema with a renewed interest in the lives of others while walking home - a story on every corner, if you like.  

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