Paris Memories – Film Review
by Frank L.

Original title: Revoir Paris – 2022
Duration: 1h 45m

Director –  Alice Winocour
Writers – Jean-Stéphane Bron, Marcia Romano, Alice Winocour
Stars – Virginie Efira, Benoît Magimel, Grégoire Colin

On 13th November 2015, Paris was rocked by a series of coordinated terrorist attacks. The Bataclan nightclub was the most prominent target but several restaurants also fell victim. The director of this film, Alice Winocour, was directly affected by these events as her brother survived the Bataclan explosion. The film is based on a fictional attack on a restaurant called “L’Etoile d’Or” by armed men on that fateful night.  It follows Mia (Virginie Efira) who was dining alone when the attack began. Her partner, a doctor, was called back to his hospital. It shows in some detail as she tried to protect herself as the attack by the gunmen proceeded before she blacks out. What happened in the restaurant before and during the attack haunts Mia. After a lapse of several months to handle the trauma she joins a self-help group of survivors who meet in the refurbished “L’Etoile d’Or”.

Among the survivors is Thomas (Benoit Magimel), a financier, who was celebrating his birthday on that fateful evening. A relationship develops between Thomas and Mia. But Mia is haunted by the memory of an African man (Amadou Mbow) who held her hand before she blacked out. She needs to find him. No simple task as he is an immigrant whose employment status as a kitchen worker was dubious. Mia’s life therefore straddles in Paris the world of white entitlement and black immigrant survival. The ambience of one is of plenty in comfortable surroundings, while the other is of scrimping in municipal non-descript housing. Winocour shows the easy confidence of one and the hand-to-mouth existence of the other. Yet it is the terrorist attack that brings these worlds together for Mia. All this plays out against occasional aerial views of Paris which reminds you of how lovely Paris is as a city.

Winocour has made a film which shows some of the constant pain, both physical and mental, that a terrorist attack creates for victims. The frequent use of flashbacks of what happened in the restaurant before and during the attack gives some idea of how the traumatic events haunt Mia’s existence. But she as a white middle-class resident of Paris has the support of the self-help group. The African immigrant has no such luck.

It’s a thoughtful and insightful look at a terrorist attack and its aftermath. There are moments of great tension and it all seems frighteningly realistic apart from the odd moment. It captures the joys of a comfortable life in Paris and the challenges of those who are excluded. It is this mixture which gives the film its strength and which makes it worth seeing.