Le genre humain - 1ère partie: Les Parisiens
Le genre humain - 1ère partie: Les Parisiens
| 15 September 2004 (USA)
Le genre humain - 1ère partie: Les Parisiens Trailers

Paris, December 1999. A group of Parisians cross paths. A police commissioner madly in love with his colleague's wife, a director looking for a subject. A man who learns that he has lung cancer. A waitress in love with her boss. A wealthy owner of a pizza chain who falls in love with a former member of the Comédie Française when he wanted to buy her castle. Among them, there is also Shaa. She dreams of becoming a singer and starts a duet with Massimo, a street singer of Italian origin. They quickly fall in love with each other. But one day, a producer spots Shaa and offers her a solo career.

Reviews
Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.
Invaderbank The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.
Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
Wyatt There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.
writers_reign I haven't seen too many Lelouch films; A Man and A Woman but that doesn't really count because everybody saw it, and a couple of years ago And Now Ladies And Gentlemen ... which didn't do a lot for me. Somehow, though, I had high hopes for this one, a friend saw it at the Deauville festival and recommended it but it's been a disaster in Paris and disappeared after 4 weeks. It's the first part of a trilogy and though the second part is in the can Lelouch is making noises like that's where it'll stay and the third part is definitely on hold. Actually it's not as bad as all that. A tad discursive in the first hour where characters come and go, possibly to be developed in later segments but eventually we do focus on one story and perhaps unfortunately Lelouch has reached back to all those Hollywood musicals that crop up on TV fifty years after they were made. You know the type, two guys - or one guy and one gal - playing the sticks in vaudeville, then one night a Broadway producer comes backstage and says, 'you were great, kid; howja like to play the Paramount?', 'Sure, we'd love to'. 'Hold it right there, kid, I can't use the ACT, it's YOU I want'. Wherupon the loser half of the duo says, 'Go on, take it, don't be a sap; this is your big chance, don't worry about ME, I'll just start dating a fifth of bourbon and keep on til they find me dead in the gutter without a dime in my jeans, but YOU, you got it all ahead of you'. So help me that's what happens here, Italian street singer takes a young girl thief under his wing; they work the streets, progress to a club and then someone sees potential in the girl and it's bye, bye, mentor. But there's a twist, eventually, against the odds the guy becomes an even bigger star, the girl regrets what she did, they make a movie together, it's directed by, wait for it, Claude Lelouch. Hokey? Okay, Corny? Okay. Nevertheless ... I liked it. Sue me already.
kerluptilu This is quite an usual "Lelouch" movie: there are many different characters all slightly related to each other and the main subject is "what is it to love". I loved that part of the movie, this is why I go and see Lelouch's movie.What I didn't like is first the title: very pompous and pretentious I think. Very pretentious also of Lelouch to be himself in his own movie. When he says to the actors that they overact, well he could say this to himself. This last half an hour is wasted, I didn't see the point of it.in any ways that movie doesn't deserve that after only 3 weeks you can see it on only 2 small screens in Paris... Please if you are in Paris at the moment rush to see it!Some characters should be developed (the twins in particular) and I suppose they will be in the second part and I hope this huge commercial failure won't compromise the coming out of the next one
arnaud collery First of all I am French and I live in Hollywood and that says a lot. I am usually not keen on French movies except those made before the 70s. We just had the best movies ever in the world. Actors such as Delon, Belmondo, Marais, Bourvil, Fernandel, De Funes were just amazing. Some still play and are worth seeing like JP Mariel, an amazing actor. I met once Lelouch in the street and the guy strikes me as being so nice, so curious. I had to see his last movie. My god. This is what I miss of France. This is France at its best. I hate those critics in France they are all destroying the movie because of the first degree of the movie. In France people say anything as long as it looks intellectual. A movie is made to make us moove. I want to feel and I want to cry, to shout, to laugh. Lelouch has made just that. He has a way to follow actors just like he would caress them. This is beautiful. Lots of small beautiful and full of sensuality scenes. The seduction, the love between the characters are so true and so French. This girl falling in love with an old guy in the street who is poor too..only in France. America has to learn a lot from that movie. It reminds me of la dolce vita with Marcello. It is not a movie, it is a visual poetry. Yes France kept its vitality and grace thanks to Lelouch. Lelouch, please be the next president of USA, you d change everybody. Check out the scene between Arielle Dombasle and our great comic, jazzman mr..I forget his name. There is also a theme behind it...we are all faithful as long as we do not find better. It is not up to me to decide of the reality of it, it is up to you to see the movie and see the truth blowing in front of you. Lelouch is a terrorist of love.
denny-packard This is the first film by Claude Lelouche that I have ever seen, but it wasn't to my liking. Either it was way over my head, or it's a lemon. "Les Parisiens" is the collection of very loosely interwoven stories, but it is a far cry from Pasolini's "Decameron" or Robert Altman's "Short Cuts." Only in the second half of the story does the main thread emerge, the story of an Italian street singer (Massimo) who takes on a female shoplifter as his singing partner. They are invited to sing in a bar and enjoy some moderate success as a team. A record producer sees their act and offers the girl a recording contract. She is forced to decide to abandon Massimo and accept the recording contract or to turn it down. She decides to dump Massimo, and gains fame as a single act. Massimo is forced to go solo, but ends up a bigger success than his former partner. She regrets her decision and writes a book detailing her betrayal of Massimo. I found the story rambling, to the point where I dozed off during the first half, something I haven't done in a movie theater since "Peter Pan" when I was 5 years old. The characters all struck me as quite superficial and the story uncompelling. The film did get some applause at the end, and I heard a woman being filmed outside the cinema complex state that she loved the film. I'm glad I got a free ticket to see it because this way I didn't waste my money on it.