Paris in July: Week 1
This is my first post for the Paris in July challenge:
Song of the week: Rufus Wainwright – Les Feux D’Artifice T’Appellent
Anyone who knows me knows I love me some Rufus. Heck, I even named one of my cats after the guy! So duh, I’m not gonna miss my chance to kick off my first Paris in July post with this song! Unfortunately, YouTube removed my favorite video of him singing it, so this is the next best thing. It’s from his French opera, Prima Donna.
Film of the week: Paris 36 (2008)
Starting with a New Year’s Eve murder, Paris 36 is about a group of unemployed men who try to revive the neighborhood theatre they once worked at, the Chansonia. Led by Pigoil, a father who desperately wants his son back, the men renovate the place and try to put on a succesful musical starring a young woman named Douce.
The film is set in the 1930s, and my favorite thing about it by far is the costumes! It is directed by Christophe Barratier, whose last film, The Chorus, I absolutely adore. I wish I could say the same about Paris 36: while the film certainly had its charms (Nora Arnezeder, who played Douce, was terrific), overall the film was a bit lackluster.
Short story of the week: N/A. I’d hoped to read “Mademoiselle Cocotte” by Guy De Maupassant, but I’m still working on Anna Karenina right now, so that’s where all my reading focus is geared. Hopefully, I’ll be done with the novel by Monday night!
A word on Anna Karenina, though: the characters often switch to French whenever they’re talking about something they don’t want the servants to hear. I took 2 years of French in high school, 2 more years of French in college, and still can’t speak a lick of it, but I love coming across these little French sections in the book. There’s translations in the footnotes, but I love trying to decipher what these sentences mean before jumping to the translations. Granted, I’m about 7 years out of practice (not counting all the French films I watch), but I have about a 30% success rate. Which…better than nothing, I suppose. 😉
Welcome to Paris in July. Shame about the movie, but at least there were costumes to admire. Looking forward to your short story review. See you next week.