Director Cedric Klapisch's breakthrough film was 1996's "Chacun Cherche Son Chat" ("When The Cat's Away"), a documentary-like trifle about a lost cat that nevertheless seemed to say something essential about life in the anonymity of a big city. Klapisch set his film in Paris' 11th arrondisement, and he filmed it with the affection of someone who knew its streets intimately. His was a Paris that seemed alive, vibrant and real, not some bogus movie backdrop.
Some movies are set in cities, whereas others are about them, and Klapisch's latest, "Paris," falls into the latter category.
Clearly inspired by the ensemble films of Robert Altman ("Nashville" in particular), Klapisch seeks to draw a portrait of today's Paris by skipping along a loosely connected plot that draws in about a dozen characters ranging from a fishmonger to a fashionista, an ingenue to an immigrant.