2 Days in Paris

In Julie Delpy’s Before Sunrise and its sequel Before Sunset, a couple find love that comes once in a lifetime in a few brief, hastily snatched hours before they part. She also wrote the screenplay of the latter. Here, Delpy, writing, directing, editing, starring and singing, catches up with a couple who have spent two years together but take just two days in Paris to realise that they really don’t know much about each other.

Does time make love stronger, or does familiarity erode romance? Does love happen at first sight, or need love be blind? Does past not matter, or is it the future?

Delpy explores all of this, pointing out how definitions are pointless when love is all that, and more — before sunrise, before sunset, in the darkest hours of the night, and the hottest hours of the day. The beauty is her manner: insightful while being quirky and funny. Here is a film that keeps its eyes open and also its heart, generous to all that it touches, including the five odd drivers of the taxis the couple take.

Jack is the clichéd American tourist, shocked by a Paris that is cliché tres francais. What he doesn’t bargain for, however, are Marion’s ex-lovers, who seem to be crawling out of everywhere into their lives. As says the film’s tagline: “He knew Paris was for lovers. He just didn’t think they were all hers.”

In its humour, quirkiness and observations, 2 Days in Paris has flashes of Woody Allen. However, there’s one significant difference. Delpy brings to this film what Allen wouldn’t: in this Obama season, may we say, the audacity of hope.

shalini.langer@expressindia.com