Paris, 13th District

It's excruciating having on your laptop the video file for a film you're dying to see but not having the subtitles for it. - 2022 goal: learn French. - Today, someone, God bless his soul, uploaded the English subs for the movie, and I finally got to watch it.

A beautiful film! A candid and unreserved look at love life in the early thirties, portrayed brilliantly by an - Merlant excluded - unknown cast. What I loved the most here was how the film floats around from one character to the other, detaching you in a way from them, but that worked so well in creating a cozy, calming atmosphere where you can enjoy the movie without getting too emotionally attached with any of them. Audiard takes you and puts you into a place where you can't "get hurt" by connecting too deeply or caring a lot for a character while at the same time telling a story that's supposed to do that to you. That alone, I think it's incredible to pull off, but Jacques managed to do so with flying colors. Here we got, essentially, the tearless, color-deprived version of last year's 'The Worst Person in the World' (plus through some "online dating" perspective into it). 'Paris, 13th District' was a comfortable watch for me, and I think it's a film I'll revisit because, again, I found it extremely relaxing. And with that, I don't mean there weren't moments I didn't have an emotional response to what I saw. The emotions are there, especially in the end. They just don't hit you like Hiroshima.