Made-in-Paris movies that touch my heart

MANILA, Philippines - My fascination with Paris started when at a very young age, I heard from my older sisters about the controversial movie Last Tango in Paris (I was legally barred from watching it then, being under age) where a middle-aged man (the Marlon Brando, past his prime), after the suicide of his wife, enters into a sex-only relationship with a very young Frenchwoman. This fascination turned into a deep curiosity for the city after I saw The Day of the Jackal, an action masterpiece set in Paris where the Jackal, a cold-blooded mercenary, was to assassinate President Charles de Gaulle. Much later, as a teenager, I had the chance to travel to Europe with the UP Concert Chorus but Paris was sadly not included in the itinerary.

In 1995, when I had my second child Mika, I was smitten by the romantic-comedy film French Kiss, where Meg Ryan flies to Paris to win back her boyfriend who left her for a Frenchwoman but ends up falling in love with a French petty thief Kevin Kline. From this movie, I got a large dose of Paris and fell in love with the city with the film’s numerous shots of famous Paris tourist spots. When Mika turned one the following year, I bought a VHS tape of Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame (based on the Victor Hugo novel Notre-Dame de Paris about the hunchback Quasimodo, bell-ringer for the eponymous cathedral in Paris with Esmeralda voiced by no less than Demi Moore). As Mika and I watched the Disney tape over and over until she went to grade school, I promised myself that one day I will visit this magnificent example of Gothic architecture and offer a prayer for the soul of Quasimodo.

Nicole Kidman as a famous cabaret dancer in Paris in Moulin Rouge

I cried at the tragic ending of Moulin Rouge (2001), a critically-acclaimed film starring Ewan McGregor as a young poet living in Paris who falls in love with Nicole Kidman, cabaret Moulin Rouge’s highest paid performer, then already betrothed to an archduke. In 2002, I found Audrey Tautou so cute in Amelie serving at a café in Montmartre. The highly-controversial 2006 movie The Da Vinci Code (incidentally, its release resulted in an additional one million visitors per year to the Louvre Museum) was a turning point in my life. Featuring the Mona Lisa painting and the other works of art comprising Louvre’s collection, my curiosity and fascination for Paris was transformed into a deep longing: I just had to go to Paris.

Indeed, Paris is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Seeing and breathing it would let one understand why it has become the setting of many popular movies. During the flight for my most recent trip to Europe to join a tour group with my 89-year-old Mom, my sister Mareyca and her husband Mel, I savored Midnight in Paris and Before Sunrise and fell in love with Paris all over again. Midnight in Paris is the latest Woody Allen film that has recently been nominated for several Golden Globe Awards. Here, Owen Wilson, a writer who comes to Paris with her girlfriend Rachel McAdams and her rich parents, is transported back to the ’20s in Paris and meets with famous people like Ernest Hemingway, Cole Porter and Pablo Picasso. The artist in Owen tells him to stay in Paris, break up with his American girlfriend and find happiness there. The movie opens with a three-minute postcard view montage of Paris showing its highlights that made my heart beat ever so wildly before our plane landed. Carla Bruni (former model, singer and songwriter and now France’s First Lady) appears as a museum guide.

Before Sunset stars Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke

Before Sunset, on the other hand, stars Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. Already married American writer Ethan Hawke goes to Paris for a book signing tour of his book about his brief love affair nine years previous with Frenchwoman Julie. As he wanted it, Julie appears at the book signing. The romantic feelings were rekindled as the two conversed through the narrow streets of Paris, in a café, in a garden, in a boat and in a car. They end up at Julie’s apartment with Ethan not showing any sign that he was still interested in going back to his family in the US.

Truly, Paris — with its magnificent architecture, panoramic beauty, breathtaking museums (that I simply cannot have enough of), delectable dishes, fine language, and culture — like the love of a lifetime, is worth fighting and dying for. This is what actually Kate Winslet poignantly proved to her husband Leonardo di Caprio in the critically-acclaimed Revolutionary Road when he broke his promise to bring their family to Paris to pursue their dreams. At the end of the movie, Winslet showed that she would rather die than not live the life of passion, fulfillment and magic that she had wanted to live… in Paris.

(E-mail me at [email protected]or text 0927-5000833).

Midnight in Paris shows the city’s famous tourist spots including Versailles shown in the photo