Broadway Features and Reviews
Paris 36: Broadway Musical Paris Style
By Mazall Sharp, Broadway Magazine
"Paris 36", a film by Christophe Barratier is part love story, drama and musical with an occasional touch of whimsy. Set in 1936 in a fictional Paris neighborhood named "Le Faubourg" the film follows a local group of theatre enthusiasts trying to save their cherished theatre, the Chansonia, from demise. The local mob boss along with a new change in government makes saving their theatre a threatening and challenging endeavor. The man at the center of this world is Pigoil, a stage hand for the theatre who lives with his young son Jojo. While the film seems confused trying to capture its genre and never fully succeeding, the father/son story between Pigoil and Jojo keeps it moving and gives the film its core.
An American audience will most likely compare the film to an amalgamation of "Moulin Rouge", "Amelie" and "La Vie En Rose", but unlike these three films "Paris 36" seems too lost in the different genres it's trying to take on to ever fully seduce the audience. There is, however, beautiful and completely original music throughout written by Frank Thomas and Reinhardt Wagner and a show tune fit for Broadway ends the film on a very high note.
Released by Sony Pictures Classics and Produced by Jacques Perrin and Nicolas Mauvernay, "Paris 36" opens in New York and Los Angeles on April 3.
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