"Paris travel guide, according to Woody Allen"

Title: Midnight in Paris
Year: 2011
Genre: Comedy, Fantasy, Romance
Director and Writer: Woody Allen
Runtine: 94min
Cast: Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, Marion Cotillard, Corey Stoll
Produc.: Gravier Productions, Mediapro, Televisió de Catalunya (TV3)
Budget: $30 million approx.

Midnight in Paris is about an american writer (Owen Wilson) who travels to Paris with his fiancée (Rachel McAdams) and in-laws (Kurt Fuller and Mimmi Kennedy). Then one night, while his fiancée is going to a party, he goes for a walk, at which point he falls into a kind of spell which takes him to the Paris of the 20s with which he has always dreamed about.

The film starts with a beautiful repertoire of shots from different parts of Paris, showing some of the many travel options that can be chosen by a tourist. The repertoire is shown with musical accompaniment, but lacking of credits. Surely, for those who have already gone to Paris or for those intending to do so, this presentation should serve as a trigger to make them arme their bags, for once and for all. What's more, it is boy daytime and nighttime shots, and both, on sunny and rainy days, decorating even more that so spectacular and romantic image that so many people attributes to the French. But beyond such beauty, the beginning ends up being too long, remaining in the purely propagandistic. When the music ends, by terminating the presentation, it is comforting to hear two voice-overs.

Now the film is giving us to meet certain characters, four middle-class Americans, and then we immediately see the kind of meetings they attend. A little later, Gil (Wilson) prefers to go for a walk instead of going to dance with his girlfriend, leaves her for a while, and suddenly it's already twelve o'clock. Gil moves quietly through a cobbled street when "abracadabra and hocus-pocus", he sees a carriage approaching which certainly does not fit at all with the XXIst century. This will be his doorway to a magical retrospective of the incredible Paris of the 20s, and what would seem impossible for any rational mortal will come true for this man, who will have the honor to meet intellectuals of the stature of Ernest Hemingway, Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí.

In itself, it´s this impossible trip, what at first the film would appear to be treating about, and which, at the same time, should give to it a certain charm. And I am not just talk about the fantasy aspect, but to the magic of the city that gave rise to the phrase "See Paris and then die." However there is another element that fro my taste overshadows any possibility to tell the story efficiently, and is the exaggerated importance given to the city itself. It is as if each of the shots of the film pretended to tell us "Look, how beautiful it is to be here" and that the main argument, with painters, writers and others, were merely an excuse. Then Woody Allen turns his latest film into a "camouflaged tour guide." Because I believe that while every´s film photography is extremely important, it is even more the story that is told. And here it almost seems that the story were something secondary, turned into an excuse to make us want to travel there.

Well into the development of the plot, as Gil continues to meet these historical characters, he will keep with them some interesting dialogues, exposing to them certain issues in his life, and is when one as a viewer is drawn toward what is happening. However, regardless what is happening, one has to pay special attention to the framing and repeat to yourself "how badly I have to buy a ticket to this city of dreams."

To make matters worse, what does Gil decides in the end? Neither more nor less than to stay in Paris to live. Now just, I do not remember if he chose it as something temporary or at long term, which it makes no difference.

But still, not everything is so negative in Midnight in Paris. Beyond being an extremely ad film manages to be entertaining, either when Gil is present on screen as when he is in the past, and situations as his encounter with Bunuel, to whom he suggests an idea for a movie, become a lot of fun.

My rating: 6/10

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