[FILM]
PARIS, 13TH DISTRICT
Oh, l’amour.
★★★
OUT 4 MARCH
CERT 18 / 105 MINS
DIRECTOR Jacques Audiard
CAST Lucie Zhang, Makita Samba, Noémie Merlant, Jehnny Beth
PLOT In a crisp, black-and-white vision of Paris, three young people — call-centre worker Émilie (Zhang), teacher Camille (Samba) and student Nora (Merlant) — meet through circumstances of life, love and work. As their sex lives intertwine, they learn to navigate their relationships with each other, their families and themselves.
DURING ONE OF many lilting conversations about sex and desire in Paris, 13th District, charismatic, confident teacher Camille (Makita Samba) shallowly states, “If I’m not violently turned on, forget it. Attraction fades, so start with the highest attraction level.” It’s an approach that doesn’t go down well with still-infatuated former lover Émilie (Lucie Zhang), despite her own laidback attitude to dating (“Fuck first, see later”), and one that director Jacques Audiard seems keen to deconstruct in a film that eschews most of the beginning of its characters’ relationships, focusing more on how they treat each other afterwards.