Paris, 13^th Dis­trict – first-look review

Jacques Audi­ard is a famil­iar face at Cannes, hav­ing first com­pet­ed for the Palme d’Or in 1996 with A Self-Made Hero, receiv­ing crit­i­cal acclaim for A Prophet in 2009, and final­ly scoop­ing the cov­et­ed main prize for Dheep­an in 2015. His films fre­quent­ly favour emo­tion­al tur­moil (see whale-heavy romance Rust and Bone) and his lat­est, Paris, 13^th Dis­trict, is no exception. 

The tit­u­lar neigh­bour­hood is sit­u­at­ed in the south of the city and is home to a large por­tion of its Asian pop­u­la­tion. Among them is Emi­lie (Lucie Zhang), a Tai­wainese Parisian liv­ing rent-free in her grandmother’s apart­ment, blithe­ly ignor­ing the con­cerns of her moth­er and old­er, more suc­cess­ful sis­ter. She encoun­ters lev­el-head­ed teacher Camille (Maki­ta Sam­ba) while search­ing for a room­mate, and an ill-advised attrac­tion quick­ly develops.

But the course of true love nev­er did run smooth, and Emilie’s imma­ture, scathing ways soon take their toll on Camille. Mean­while, 32-year-old Norah (Noémie Mer­lant) has just arrived in Paris from Bor­deaux to study law – but a case of mis­tak­en iden­ti­ty involv­ing cam girl Amber Sweet (Jen­ny Beth) sends her reel­ing and into Emi­lie and Camille’s orbit. 

These con­verg­ing nar­ra­tives are sharply adapt­ed from Adri­an Tomine’s graph­ic nov­el ​‘Killing and Dying’ (specif­i­cal­ly the short sto­ry of the same name, plus ​‘Amber Sweet’ and‘ Hawai­ian Get­away’) by Audi­ard, Céline Sci­amma and Léa Mysius, and demys­ti­fy the romance of Paris to great suc­cess. There’s no Eif­fel Tow­er, no Champs-Élysées, just the impos­ing con­crete facades of tow­er blocks and the occa­sion­al glimpse of the riv­er Seine. 

There’s a real sense of place with­in the film, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the apart­ments of Emi­lie and Norah, but also as they wan­der the neigh­bour­hood through malls and green spaces. It feels like we’re being giv­en a tour by locals, whose love for their city is only jad­ed by the bur­den of title. This apa­thet­ic insider’s view of Paris match­es its drift­ing occu­pants at the heart of the sto­ry; Emi­lie works a dead-end job in a call cen­tre, while Camille has to take up a new job to sup­port him­self while he works on his doc­tor­ate in mod­ern lit­er­a­ture. Mean­while, Norah approach­es Paris with the wide-eyed won­der­ment of a young woman who’s just moved to the big city, caught under its spell.

French elec­tron­ic artist Rone pro­vides the film’s dynam­ic score, which com­ple­ments Audiard’s deci­sion to shoot in moody black-and-white (aside from one scene, which feels like a slight mis­step). But it’s the quar­tet of actors at the heart of the sto­ry who real­ly deserve all the praise: in a plea­sur­able two-hour run­time, they feel ful­ly-realised and sym­pa­thet­ic. New­com­er Lucie Zhang is par­tic­u­lar­ly impres­sive, cut­ting an acer­bic but vul­ner­a­ble fig­ure as Emi­lie, caught between famil­ial expec­ta­tion and her own interests. 

With keen­ly-observed riffs on top­ics includ­ing dat­ing apps, stand-up com­e­dy and the nature of casu­al dat­ing in the mod­ern world, there’s no moral­is­ing or scorn for the young folks and their messy approach to work and play. Even with its art­sy cin­e­matog­ra­phy, this feels like Audiard’s least self-con­scious work to date, a play­ful reminder that the kids aren’t alright, but they’re feel­ing their way through.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them. But to keep going, and grow­ing, we need your sup­port. Become a mem­ber today.