PARIS MEMORIES

The new film from Alice Winocour is out from Picturehouse Entertainment on August 4th

Paris Memories is a film that is at once still and about being alive, living but coping with death, Winocour's new film follows Mia (Virginie Efira) our lead protagonist who is present for an atrocious act of barbarity when seeking refuge from a torrential downpour in a Parisian bistro. Her beau has had to return to work and she is alone when the attack happens, she hides under a table holding an African man’s hand they remain safe and are connected by this moment.

For Winocour this was a personal film as she states; 'My brother was at the Bataclan on November 13th. While he was hiding, I stayed in contact with him by text for part of the night. The film was inspired by my own memories of the trauma and by the account my brother gave in the days after the attack. I experienced for myself how events are deconstructed, and often reconstructed, by memory.” 

The Bataclan attacks occured in 2015 and much like the July 7th attacks in London, they are a constant reminder that a threat is around the corner but from the ashes of tragedy the power of healing and resilience can come to the fore.

An admired linguist who is renowned for her professionalism and a sort of rebel or outsider due to her riding a motorbike, she seeks solace following the event. Three months later, Mia is still unable to get her life back in order only remembering fleeting moments of the night, she attempts to investigate her memories to return to happiness. She attends therapy groups at the location as survivors tell their stories and yet she is met in opposition by one lady who accuses her of locking the bathroom door saving herself while others died.

Winocour is a director who engages with the milieu and mise-en-scene of the film, having her characters become one with the location and the location a part of the story. Tellingly the first shot we see post-siege is that of a Paris landmark with cars circling the monument, life goes on for everybody else in the major city yet for those who had to endure the attack the feeling of moving on is one that fills them with dread. A guilt of surviving while others were lost, she learns to cope through the struggle of daily work as anxiety grips her existence.

Winocour and Efira (as the focal point) have created a drama of quiet intensity and introspection about confronting the build up of overwhelming emotion that comes with witnessing a seismic event of tragedy; the film takes care to show that there is beauty in the world (a baby's cry) and yet there are those that will kill innocents willingly.

Yet Efira capably shows envy in her eyes at those who go about their business and how anything from the lighting of candles on a cake can illicit memories of the night. As Winocour mentions in press notes, she was more interested in the traces the attack left on the victims than attempting to explain the attack itself.

Efira deservedly won Best Actress at the 2022 Cesar Awards (French Oscars) for this performance is an actress who usually plays women who are unravelled or provoked (Verhoeven's Benedetta), her she plays Mia as a tightly wrought ball until the emotion finally comes to the surface. The empathy of her work here coupled with natural charm is a primer to the success of the film and how her every-person quality endears her to the viewership as she becomes a sort of detective in her quest for answers as she pieces together the fragments of her memory from that horrific evening.

Shot beautifully by Stephane Fontaine (A Prophet), the film is a message of hope in a sometimes mad world. Photograhed for the majority in medium and close up so that the intensity of the performance never waivers from the viewer and that comes from the quiet brilliance of Virginie Efira. This coupled with the same team of regular collaborators such as Julien Lacheray (Editor) and Pascaline Chavanne (Costume Design), this is a film of maturity and importance.

Paris Memories is the first time Winocour has filmed in her capital city and Paris itself becomes a character within the film wearing its scars for all to see while its inhabitants attempt to make sense of their position in the tragedy.

The recurring trope of hands touching and the need for connection amongst these souls, almost ghosts, is paramount and in Winocour's sympathetic and delicate handling the film touchingly attempts to make sense of the upheaval thrust upon Mia, Thomas and the others.

A film that is both resonant and emotional, touching and clear that there is hope within the world.

Paris Memories is out on 4th August in cinemas nationwide.