Paris, Je T’aime was fabulous. Although some of the vignettes weren’t cinematic masterpieces, they showed the city through different lenses. They gave a place that tends to be romanticized a real-life quality. Tour d’Eiffel? Oui, but Paris has a lot more to offer.
New York, I Love You, on the other hand, fails. With fewer – 11, rather than 20 – vignettes, it is a lacking depiction of an equally fabulous city.
Walking home from the theater, my roommate and I tried to get a table for some hot chocolate at Serendipity, an Upper East Side restaurant made famous by the film of the same name. New York is full of such spots, probably because it’s a place that makes filmmakers salivate. Do I even need to list the places that have shown up on film here?
The problem with NYC’s A-list personality, its tendency to steal the show, is that it has turned into a cinematic version of itself. People line up for “one hour plus” just to have a cup of hot chocolate where Keanu Reeves did the same. (We didn’t, and saved $8.50.) They stroll by the Tiffany’s window, not quite as gracefully as Audrey did, but playing her part as best they can. New York, I Love You is a film about this oh-so-filmable place. It showcases the New York that movie producers have created, rather than the New York that actually is. (This is particularly evident at the end of the film, which uses one of the story lines – a woman who films everything she sees – to tie all of the scenes together, hastily.)
I haven’t lived here long, but I know there’s more to the city than what we see in New York, I Love You. Yes, there’s a shot of Coney Island. Sure, Chinatown makes the cut. I suppose Natalie Portman sits on a bench in Brooklyn, albeit looking across the water at Manhattan. But where is the rest of the city? This is perhaps one of the things that gave Paris je t’aime its chops: it was set in 20 different arrondissements, forcing the directors to provide a broader view.
Another problem with New York, I Love You is its characters. Where are people who don’t look like they belong in movies? The film itself is beautiful, but considering the diversity of the filmmakers involved in the project, it’s a flattened look at a multi-dimensional place.
Portraits are nice, but New York deserves to be sculpted.
0 responses so far ↓
There are no comments yet...Kick things off by filling out the form below.