By Armond White

It was difficult to figure out why the charm and inventiveness of the city life comedy Dans Paris (translated as “Inside Paris”) was ultimately unsatisfying—until one crucial scene: Twentysomething Jonathan (Louis Garrel) pauses in his womanizing spree on the streets of Paris to stare—transfixed—at two movie posters. He faces an illuminated curbside kiosk advertising Gus Van Sant’s Last Days and David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence. These films are not classic expressions of contemporary experience to go with the whimsy of Dans Paris; they’re nihilistic resignations, celebrating American corruption and the meaninglessness of life. Through this homage, Christophe Honoré reveals a susceptibility to cynicism that prevents Dans Paris from fulfilling its joyful promise.

Before that, Dans Paris appears to be a unique caprice. It’s the story of two brothers, curly-haired, carefree Jonathan and brooding, bearded Paul (Romain Duris), whose different approaches to life are reflected in their romantic styles. Jonathan’s a player and Paul is lovesick. After breaking up with Anna (Joana Preiss), Paul secludes himself in his bedroom like Chekhov’s Oblomov, retiring from the world in the womblike security of the apartment the two young men share with their divorced father, Mirko (Guy Marchand).

Honoré presents this sitcom premise (reminiscent of the competitive brothers in the TV series “Frasier”) through deliberate cinematic anarchy. Jonathan addresses the camera and introduces his storyline as “an apostrophe.” In fact, the entire film becomes a series of sudden changes in tone and form, concluding with a musical climax (a “catastrophe” in dramatic grammar). Each scene of Dans Paris suggests opposing verses in a poem. Jonathan urges Paul to get outside and meet him at Bon Marché but, on the way there, the pick-up artist sibling meets and makes love to three different women. These ellipses allow Honoré to characterize the privileges of middle-class Parisian living while commenting offhand on its tensions. Dans Paris circles around the gaps in family life: the bickering that hides affection. A fine detail shows Paul listening to his father and mother (Marie-France Pisier) briefly reunite then resume quarreling (he smiles at the familiarity of their contention).
At first, Honoré’s quick changes and sparks of tenderness seem to be honoring the tradition of Rene Clair’s Le Million, Jean Vigo’s L’Atalante, Renoir’s Boudou Saved From Drowning, Louis Malle’s Zazie dans le Metro and Truffaut’s Love at Twenty—all humanist masterworks that re-invented cinematic conventions to approximate how sex and morality figured in people’s everyday behavior. But catastrophic differences occur—based in the recent convulsions of film culture that have turned movies from a popular art to an elitist one.

Dans Paris shows the social disengagement of a privileged class of filmmakers and film critics who use art to aggrandize their own class advantages. It’s evident in both Jonathan and Paul’s sexual solipsism; particularly the way Jonathan dismisses a clinging paramour (Judith El Zein) and leaves her desolate on the living room floor while he goes off to bond with his brother. The old Gallic egalitarianism is missing; replaced by Van Sant and Cronenberg heartlessness. It’s a stupefying turn for a French movie—ungallant, uneven and ugly. Honoré succumbs to the inhumane selfishness of contemporary film culture. Jonathan’s lovemaking becomes a sign of selfishness, not instinctive esprit. Garrel, of Bertolucci’s The Dreamers, is a compelling, sexy screen figure and the less compelling, though ubiquitous Duris (currently the star of Molière) each assume the mantle of French male ingénue. Garrel is channeling the Jean-Pierre Leaud one fondly recalls, while Duris is the bratty Leaud one suffered. Both wind-up obnoxious.

One of the glories of the French New Wave was its sense that urbane young men and women were united sexually and politically by their response to popular culture. It wasn’t merely a myth but an effervescent fact of modern life. Some of that recurs in Dans Paris when Paul and Anna’s final phone call becomes a duet, sung like one of Cinerama’s poignant break-up songs. This one’s called “After Hate” and yet its essence is dismissive. Where did this come from? Hard to say except it suggests the creeping, worldwide influence of Van Sant and Cronenberg’s sickness.

It’s no fun watching a movie with such debilitating sarcasm in the aftermath of Antonioni and Bergman’s deaths. Following those concussive events, Dans Paris not only loses its charm but is devastatingly disappointing. It suggests that humane film art is out of favor.