Un amour à Paris

For those who, like me, love Merzak Allouache's knack both for comedy and social comment ( just think these wonderful titles : "Omar Gatlato", "Salut Cousin" or Bab El Oued City" ), "Un Amour à Paris" comes as a major disappointment. Indeed, instead of highlighting serious subjects in a biting tone, the writer-director decides this time around to try his hand at poetic lunacy, a subgenre "Benny and Joon" illustrates much better. And he dramatically fails. We do not feel any interest in such characters as a French Jewish girl dreaming of being a top model( what a dream !) falling in love with an Algerian born in France hoping to become an ... astronaut ( high hopes indeed ! ). We might have if Allouache had opted for the fast pace of Hollywood's slapstick comedies. But narrated in a half-realistic, half poetic way who on earth can buy into this silly tale?

To be fair, I didn't sleep all the time. I enjoyed seeing Daniel Cohn-Bendit, the hero of may '68, narrate "his" student revolution.In the story he is supposed to be a sociology professor but the character is so close to "Dany le Rouge" that he plays virtually himself. On the other hand , Karim Allaoui is fine as Ali,the dreamer.