That summer in Paris by Valentine Cadic

A film by Valentine Cadic

With: Blandine Madec, India Hair, Arcadi Radeff, Matthias Jacquin, Lou Deleuze, Béryl Gastaldello

Paris, the 2024 Olympic Games. Blandine (30) arrives from Normandy to watch the swimming competitions. Disorientated by the hustle and bustle of the city where nothing seems to go her way, she navigates the chaos of Paris and an unexpected reunion.

Our rate: **(*)

Valentine Cadic transplants her successful short film Les grandes vacances into the furious Paris of the Olympic Games, using the same ingredients that made it such a success: freshness, well-crafted dialogue, a sense of observation, tenderness towards her characters, humor that may seem offbeat but is very much in touch with reality, and a sense and taste for the impromptu. With that summer in Paris, she once again offers us a vital interlude in her heroine’s unsuccessful journey, which, beneath its disenchanted aspects, heralds a new beginning, a new hope, and betrays the director’s unfailingly naive optimism. Once again, she relies on Blandine Madec‘s hesitant yet impassioned phrasing and high voice (one could speak of mental dialogues – or monologues), but she also adds an on-screen half-sister (Blandine Madec‘s acting and India Hair‘s have obvious similarities) to offer some interesting, almost Rohmerian variations, between reflections on the future of the planet and observations – or recordings? – of the Paris of the Olympic Games, and the philosophical and political questions the event raises.