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Paris, 13th District

Right, hands up, my views on the following film may be clouded by the fact that I rank Jacques Audiard as the greatest living director. Somebody (maybe Mel Brooks?) once said - and I'm paraphrasing here - they'd forgive their best friend vomiting all over the dinner table, but be appalled if their enemy had their cutlery in the wrong place. That's kind of how I feel about Audiard - I know he can tend towards melodrama, and this might irk me in anyone else's hands, but with him, I let it fly.

Paris, 13th District (or Les Olympiades) is only his ninth feature, and for me it sits roughly mid-table of the seven I've seen. It's about the 13th arrondissement, south-east of central Paris, which is home to Europe's largest Chinatown. I say it's about the area because the people involved in the story are secondary to the place. The story itself even takes a back seat to the way the 13th is displayed, lovingly shot in black and white by cinematographer, Paul Guilhame. Written by Audiard, Céline Sciamma and Léa Mysius, it's based on a couple of short stories by cartoonist Adrian Tomine.

Broadly, it follows the lives and loves and shagging, lots of shagging, of three people, Émilie (Lucie Zhang), Camille (Makita Samba) and Nora (Noémie Merlant). The singer, Jehnny Beth (of Savages) also plays an important role as 'adult entertainer' Amber Sweet. But this is Zhang's film, she's incredible in this, her first lead role. She's cute, acerbic, utterly careless and unambitious, as well as showing moments of deep insecurity. A star-making role. Samba plays the over-confident, yet actually caring Camille believably, and Merlant is her usual brilliant self, especially in her fantastic intro scene where she is mistaken for Sweet.

The film stops within its boundaries, only hinting at an outside world when Émilie calls her family in London. Its insularity is the key, it keeps it all contained and comfortable, allowing us to focus on the apartments, the shops, the restaurants, the skyline and the characters, and their complex, very French, relationships. Audiard directs with his usual elan - calm shots, nothing too frenetic - leaving the atmosphere created to do a lot of the heavy lifting. He has a knack of wringing optimism from the bleakest surroundings - most of his films end with a bright spot, despite whatever dire events have preceded.

Paris, 13th District is a fine example of heart over mind filmmaking, of atmosphere over plot, of style over substance even, and though these are usually levelled as a criticism, nothing could be further from the truth here. Audiard and his cast are on fine form.

It's playing now as part of the Alliance Francaise French Film Festival at Luna Leederville, Luna on SX, Palace and Windsor cinemas.

See also:

It'd be remiss of me not to mention two more Audiard films, let's go with The Beat That My Heart Skipped (2005) and A Prophet (2009). Sciamma also has a film in this festival that's supposed to be great - it's called Petite Maman (2021), but I haven't seen it yet, so can't really comment.

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