I thought Woody Allen dubbed his voice onto Owen Wilson’s role

Midnight in Paris

On the airplane, I had the choice between a bunch of films (yay Air France – good food and a selection of films? <3). I decided that I had to see something where the story is more important than the visuals – I really wanted to see “Somewhere”, but I think I need a comfy place and the right mood to see that film. “Midnight in Paris” is something I can see everywhere, and so it really was.

Of course there is postcard-beauty Paris, and Woody Allen produced a lot of them at the beginning of the film. I felt like the first 10 minutes were entirely composed of these tourist shots, and have absolutely no interest in them. This is not my Paris and it’s not the Paris of the Parisians either. Incidentally, Woody Allen decided to make a film about Paris, but not of the Paris today. A wise choice, because I can deal with romanticizing Hemingway’s Paris. There is really no other way, and I also have a strange fascination with it.
We, too, were young and poor when we went to Paris after all. We were watching movies, walked through the city and consumed more culture than ever before and after that period. This is definitely a film for me.

I had no idea that Owen Wilson would be so good. I have seen him in “The Royal Tenenbaums” and, well, “Shanghai Noon”. I never got the impression he was a good actor though now I know. He plays a better Woody Allen character than Larry David, and normally you’d expect that Larry David IS Woody Allen. His voice, the way he moves or even looks, the similarity would be uncanny if Owen Wilson looked a little more like Woody Allen. This is where the brilliancy lies, though. Considering how Wilson always plays these very manly, shining, extroverted characters (and possibly is one), it’s a miracle how he can pull off the Woody persona.

As it is so often the case, a film with an ensemble cast relies upon its women. Whereas most male characters in the film seem to be funny, exaggerated characterizations of real historical people (Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Picasso, Bunuel etc. etc.), only two females were historical, Zelda Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein, whereas the others, Inez, Adriana and the shop girl are purely fictional. Rachel McAdams gives an absolutely awesome Inez, some of her “Mean Girls” bitchiness still present in this film, and Alison Pill was a revelation as Zelda Fitzgerald. I don’t know if anybody else in this world thought she was good, but personally I was immediately enamored with the wits and eccentric character of the high-spirited Zelda Fitzgerald. It was the perfect marriage between what Woody Allen does best, the characterization of Woodthe protagonist and his relationship to women, and his newer attempts of making ensemble films. In the case of “Midnight in Paris”, the film is mostly about the former, and the ensemble is mostly there to entertain the audience and slip in a lot of references to old movies. Needless to say, I am in love.

When I was younger and read Schnitzler and Horváth and then stumbled upon a biography on Alma Mahler, I wanted to live in Vienna at that time. I was sad that all my idols were dead and were practically all friends. So I absolutely understand the feeling. But now I think that history left us with a myriad of wonderful books and music and films and all these things, and we are lucky to have them. I wouldn’t want any more, and our job is to make these times a good place, so that sometimes in the future, people would look back nostalgically at our time.