“Revoir Paris”, which is translated “Paris Memories”, is a sensitive and quietly powerful adult drama written and directed by Alice Winocour. The film’s events are fictional, but they’re inspired by the 2015 Paris terrorist attacks where members of the Islamic State carried out a string of coordinated assaults on popular soft targets across the French capital, killing 130 and injuring over 400 people.
When putting together “Revoir Paris” Winocour pulled from her own family’s experiences (her brother survived the massacre at the Bataclan theater on that horrific November evening). Her film doesn’t exaggerate the tragedy or overdramatize the trauma it left behind. Instead Winocour takes an emotionally honest and grounded look at the pain of coping and the desperate need of human connection in such trying circumstances.
While “Revoir Paris” is well directed, exquisitely shot, and features a smart and thoughtful screenplay, the film is propelled by a tremendous leading turn from Virginie Efira. The 46-year-old César Award winner gives an illuminating performance that communicates the wide range of emotions associated with such destabilizing trauma. It’s such well calibrated work that sees Efira conveying so much feeling, not just through her dialogue but also her expressions and body language. She’s a key reason the movie works so well.
Efira plays Mia, a forty-something journalist and translator whose life trajectory dramatically changes following the horrifying events of one November evening. Mia is having a late-night dinner at an area restaurant with her partner Vincent (Grégoire Colin) when he’s called back to the hospital where he works. On her way home Mia ducks into a busy bistro to wait out a rainstorm.
What we get next are a few carefully crafted minutes where Winocour strategically scans the inside of the eatery, honing in on specific details and logging them into our minds. They may seem insignificant, but they’re details that will play a big part in how the story unfolds.
Suddenly shots ring out, screams fill the air, and the lifeless bodies of innocent patrons lay everywhere. The terrorist attack sequence is truly harrowing in large part due to Winocour’s approach to it. She shoots it from Mia’s perspective offering us a visceral first-person point-of-view. Through her eyes we catch glimpses of the horror, but the sound design is just as crucial. The echo of gunfire, the shattering glass, the cries of the frightened and wounded.
But Winocour (wisely) doesn’t linger on the attack itself nor is there any gratuitous bloodshed. Instead the majority of the story takes place three months later with Mia trying to put her life back together. While the well-intentioned Vincent tries to make things as back-to-normal as possible, Mia struggles to put together the pieces of that day. She’s haunted by fragments of suppressed memories but no clear picture.
Her search for answers leads her back to the scene of the crime which has reopened for business but that holds support group meetings for survivors and family members of those lost. There she meets and connects with Thomas (Benoît Magimel), a fellow survivor who was seriously wounded that night. Unlike Mia he vividly remembers everything about that night, even seeing her prior to attack. A relationship blossoms around their shared trauma and the two find unexpected comfort in each other.
There’s also a detective story element as Mia searches for a former waiter at the restaurant (Senegalese-born actor Amadou Mbow) who may or may not have helped her survive that fateful evening. But even then Winocour emphasizes and never loses sight of the emotional toll and the essentiality of human connection. It’s that laser focus, along with Efira’s tremendous restraint and Stéphane Fontaine’s striking cinematography that invigorates this powerful study on trauma, coping, and ultimately resilience.
VERDICT – 4.5 STARS
