CANNES, France — I have an ear-to-ear smile plastered on my face as I just watched the trailer for "Coupez!" the next-day refresher after taking in the movie last night here in Cannes, where it opened the 75th edition of the festival. At the screening I laughed and I laughed and I laughed again. Because the film is brilliant and handled with maestria by Michel Hazanavicius (“The Artist”) and it's not afraid to be an honest-to-goodness comedy, one that shows the mishap potential
This is the surreal and poetic story of a young idealistic and inventive man, Colin, who meets Chloe, a young woman who could be the incarnation of a blues piece by Duke Ellington. Their idyllic marriage turns to bitterness when Chloe falls ill due to a water lily that's growing in her lung. To pay for his care in a fantasyland Paris, Colin must work under increasingly absurd conditions while all around them their apartment deteriorates
Curiously, Dans Paris (Inside Paris), second feature-film from the young French director Christophe Honoré (Ma Mère) takes place in a suburb of the French capital. The City of Lights is never far from consciousness; and its proximity is constantly reaffirmed by the ubiquitous Eiffel Tower, visible out of most windows, and in numerous exterior shots.