Midnight In Paris - Now Is All That Matters!

(2011) ★★★☆☆

The first few minutes in the film is like a travelogue of the city Paris, going with sexy Jazz music, so I thought it was going to be romantic. Yes, it is, plus a little bit of science fiction and a lot of artistic elements. If you’re an arts student, you’ll be able to appreciate it more!

Gil (Owen Wilson) is an American writer traveling in Paris with his fiancée. One night, he gets a bit drunk and insists to take a walk alone around the city. He’s later picked up by an antique car and slides through time to meet famous artists from the past. Since he’s struggling on his latest novel about a nostalgic man, he finds his time travel inconceivably fascinating and of course helpful. Nostalgia is what the film’s all about. Said it’s the denial of the painful present. There’re people who like to complain about the present and imagine how great it would be if they could live in the golden past they prefer. Gil also kind of believes that people in the past were much happier than those in the present. Right after the journey, however, he realizes that it’s not at all the truth!

Truth is, men are all nostalgic. We’re all prone to believe that things are less problematic and more satisfying than those in the present. Nowadays things get so complicated that all of us seem to be caught up in perplexities and worries about what’s going to happen next. We’re less and more concerned that 2012 would be the end of us, aren’t we? The things is, no matter what time or age we live in, we have to face up to different sorts of difficulties and frustrations since we’re not perfect after all. Life’s always a bit complicated and unsatisfying, so don’t get the wrong perception that life in the past could be more pleasant, or that the future is only going to be worse. Now is all that we have! That’s also what Gil believes so in the end I guess.

I’ve never been to Paris, or any part of the Europe, but I’m sure that it’s a city of romance and arts, elegance and also extravagance. And people there must be fairly slothful as I can picture!