Woody Allen
Midnight In Paris

Small preface: being a fan of Woody Allen (so much so that I might even try to speak well of "To Rome with Love", for instance, and rightly end up being ridiculed) I will try to be as objective as possible, but in this case, honestly, there is little room for objectivity; this is one of Allen's most beautiful films, top-tier, right up there with "Crimes and Misdemeanors" or "Broadway Danny Rose" ("Annie Hall" and "Manhattan" are untouchable), and perhaps, if we partially consider "Blue Jasmine" from two years later, the last truly great Allen film, followed by very respectable works but lacking the spark, the genius, the insight that this film is completely infused with.

It was released in 2011, a geological era ago, and quickly became a big success, even in Italy. At the time, Allen was already 76 years old and had long lost interest in acting (he would return in front of the camera with the aforementioned "To Rome with Love"); he was "only" (so to speak) the director and screenwriter. He had this idea, a man lost in Paris, unsure how to develop it and without any idea who the lead actor could be. Initially, it was supposed to be an East Coast professional, potentially played by some young actor like Jason Biggs in "Anything Else" years prior (and Jason Biggs was the one from "American Pie"), then an Allen collaborator suggested Owen Wilson's name, who had very little Californian about him. Allen was skeptical, but gradually, he realized Wilson's potential and developed the storyline based on Wilson's character, transforming him into a Hollywood screenwriter struggling for ideas (and literary ambitions) lost in Paris.

Each of us may have wanted to live in a distant era and perhaps avoid these gloomy days (though maybe some are happy with them), and the fundamental idea is this: a man who has always romanticized the Parisian twenties finds himself, mysteriously, transported there at night, and here he discusses or simply encounters people like Hemingway (who brings the protagonist back to reality by advising him to pay more attention to his girlfriend, and who else could have given such advice), Picasso, Gertrude Stein, Luis Buñuel (to whom the protagonist proposes a sort of script for "The Exterminating Angel", Buñuel's early '60s film, to which the director is indifferent, not understanding the underlying idea of the plot), Salvador Dalí and even 19th-century artists, as our protagonist also gets lost in the Paris of that era, entering into encounters with Degas, Lautrec, and Gauguin.

Now, I don't know how many readers of this review have been to Paris. I find it magnificent, the most beautiful European city, and indeed, as a tourist, there is always an air of art and culture in the city center streets that you can rarely breathe so fully in cities like London or Madrid (Rome is a case unto itself), and the idea of a man who at night finds his world within another world, the one by daylight, is brilliant, given that the streets of the French metropolis' center and the banks of the Seine have always been the ideal stage for a magical world that Allen had already partially touched upon in "Everyone Says I Love You" (which, however, was fundamentally a musical, a great musical). Allen's European period, which began in 2005 with "Match Point" and, after London and Paris, would see him reach Spain and Italy as well, reaches its peak with this film, perhaps the only film that a down-to-earth dreamer like Allen could have created.

Effortless pace, rapid-fire jokes (some outstanding ("Sex and alcohol: light the desire, kill the performance"), small memorable maxims ("That Paris exists and someone chooses to live elsewhere will always be a mystery to me!") and some forgivable self-references (the beginning is a Parisian version of Manhattan, with the notion that Paris, like Venice, is even more beautiful in the rain) and a tribute to past great classics ("Ariane" by Billy Wilder). The pastiche of sophisticated comedy and high literature is surprisingly successful, something Allen hadn't achieved in a while (even "Match Point" has its faults, whereas here it's difficult).

It won an Oscar (Best Original Screenplay, yet another award given to Allen) and, to everyone's astonishment, also received praise from Tarantino, who called it one of the most beautiful films (one of the ten, precisely) of the year. A masterpiece.