Paris 36 |  | Actors: Gerard Jugnot, Kad Merad
Studio: Sony Pictures
Category: DVD
List Price: $28.96
Buy Used: $6.74
as of 9/8/2010 18:38 CDT details
New (30) Used (21) from $6.74
Seller: wholesaledvdsforless
Rating:  12 reviews
Sales Rank: 32,854
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Languages: English (Subtitled), French (Original Language)
Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Region: 99
Discs: 1
Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1
Running Time: 120 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.6
MPN: 043396309562
UPC: 043396309562
EAN: 0043396309562
Release Date: August 11, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
In 1936, the owner of a small vaudeville house in the Faubourg district of Paris faces work challenges from a local labor organizer and personal strug
Amazon.com
Paris 36 is a hard-to-classify gem that transports the viewer to a fantasy world of Paris before Nazis rolled their tanks over French dreams and innocence. The characters spontaneously break into song, and the city looks highly stylized, reminiscent of Moulin Rouge. (Actually, the locale is a Paris suburb; the film's French name is Faubourg 36, the French word for "suburb," with "36" the year in which it's set.) The film's breakout star is its ravishing young lead actress, Nora Arnezeder, who plays Douce, a winsome, waifish, but quietly ambitious young chanteuse. Her fate becomes entwined with that of an old music hall, the Chansonia, which has fallen on hard times and then closed during the Depression of the '30s. But a touching, and hilarious, band of French oddballs join together to reopen the old hall, with the jolie Douce as its main attraction. If the plot is a bit predictable, it's still supremely enjoyable, and the characters engaging. Clint Eastwood's longtime cinematographer, Tom Stern, paints a beautiful world of contrasts. Outside, the world may be all gray cobblestone, but inside the Chansonia, awash in rich reds, golds and browns, music, and perhaps even love, can bloom. --A.T. Hurley
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 12
 Nice music but the movie dodges tough issues August 16, 2010
Alan A. Elsner (Washington DC)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This sugary musical tells the story of a Parisian music hall in 1936. The place is failing, threatened by a ruthless landlord who makes common cause with fascists and an anti-Semitic political party. A rag-tag band of workers, led by Pigoli, the man who raises and lowers the curtain over the stage, form a cooperative to save the theater. Their potential savior arrives in the shape of Douce, a hauntingly beautiful young woman who has unexpected talent as a singer and who falls in love with the communist who operates the lights in the theater.
She's played by the lovely young Nora Arnezadar in her movie debut. A featurette also included in the DVD tells how Arenzadar was discovered at an audition and adds a "Star Is Born" commentary to the movie. She is indeed by far the best thing in the movie, apart from the music which is great.
There are a couple of side plots about how Pigoli's wife abandons him and takes away his beloved son, Jo-Jo, who is learning the accordian. This movie works hard to move the viewer's tear glands, never missing a chance to go for the cheap, emotional effect. The musical interlude toward the end of the movie is charming. The songs are oh-so-Parisian and very evocative.
But this movie flirts with something bigger. It continually alludes to the political situation, with the socialist government of Leon Blum battling strikes, the menacing presence of Hitler just across the border and the growth of ultra-right racism in Paris itself. Yet the movie ultimately dodges and ducks all these questions. We know that the Germans will soon occupy Paris and we want to know what happened to the protagonists. But the movie doesn't tell us. We see Pigoli released from prison in 1945 and we know that Jo-Jo grows up to be a star -- but we don't know what happens to Douce and her lover.
This movie is quite enjoyable -- but ultimately soft and saccharin.
 Excellent views of Paris May 15, 2010
Midge E. Marino (Jacksonville Beach, Florida)
If you have been there you will truly enjoy the scenery and taste of the Paris culture.
AMAZING March 18, 2010
SUZIQQ (dallas, tx)
QUIT FUSSING AND USE SUBTITLES...GO TO SPECIAL FEATURES TO SEE HOW & WHY THIS COMES TO FRUITATION...SINCE SEE HOW AND WHERE!!!! REMEMBER THE STAR WAS ONLY 17 WHEN THIS WAS MADE...SPECIAL FEATURES TEEL YOU A LOT..IF YOU GO THERE!!
Wonderful and Entertaining March 16, 2010
T. Richards (Belleville IL)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I'm not a real foriegn language film buff but just saw two and this one was terrific. You get to know all the characters because they are all so well played. The film has sweet, but definitely edgy, innocent quality, with a healthy dose of pathos, which is unique, which is why I loved it. Nora Arnezeder is absolutely charming, beautiful and talented. This story is about a down and out producer director in an era when his life-long workplace--a theatre--is shut down and ultimately bought by the films antagonist, a local patrician property owner. The poor producer, without work, actually loses custody of his young son, whom he loves more than life, to his promiscuous and roving wife, who later settles down with a stable gentleman. With a backdrop of a France struggling with an emerging communistic labor movement, and the attendant social upheaval, several separate love stories emerge--the producer with his elusive theatre, the young passionate communistic with the glorious Douce (Nora Arnezeder) and the world of entertainment, the elderly hermit musical savant, who was in love with Douce's mother, who left years before, with his memories of her and then Douce and her talent, and the evil patrician, who is enamoured with Douce for all the wrong reasons. The running plot is how these relatively unknow actors and performers seek to redeem their theatre by being successful, per the patrician's offer, all the while he is calculating for the theatre's failure and to own Douce physically if not emotionally. This film is great in french, acted fabulously, has drama, comedy, sorrow and triumph, and wonderful music.
 French musical history October 12, 2009
Paul Kao (Sacramento, CA USA)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
When a French vaudeville theater is closed by the new management, the stagehands manage to reopen it. Things look bad until a beautiful and very talented singer takes the stage.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 12
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