LOST IN PARIS
Directors: Dominique Abel and Fiona Gordon
Cast: Fiona Gordon, Dominique Abel, Emmanuelle Riva, Pierre Richard
Rating: (M)
★★★ (out of five)
Canadian Fiona Gordon travelled to Paris to study physical theatre. She met fellow student Dominique Abel, who hails from Brussels. They started collaborating on projects and have been working together for about 30 years, getting married along the way. This is their third feature-length film and features all their trademark dance, slapstick, mime and loads of colour. It is the sort of thing where you love it for its quirky nature or loathe the quirkiness.
Gordon plays Fiona, a Canadian librarian with a love of the colour green. Fiona is supposedly content with her little spot in the wilderness but she has long dreamed of Paris where her favourite aunt Martha (Emmanuelle Riva) lives.
One day a letter arrives from Martha. Her health is failing and there has been talk of moving her into an old people’s home. Martha begs Fiona to come and save her from this threat. Soon Fiona and her oversized backpack, with its Canadian flag fluttering, is striding through the streets of Paris to rescue Martha. But it soon becomes clear that Fiona is accident prone and needs some rescuing herself. Her knight in shining armour comes in the form of a decidedly grubby homeless man, Dom (Dominique Abel).
While physical comedy is not my thing, it is done well here and by the end of the movie I was feeling decidedly cheerful even though I had hardly laughed.
- Christine Powley
