Ready...Set...Action

- From Paris with love -

Woody Allen recently explained why his new blockbuster movie 'Midnight in Paris' was shot in the French capital. "Everybody in the US is brought up to love Paris; people love the city even before they ever set foot in it".  

Paris, the city of lights and endless romance has been the set for numerous movies. So many that you could almost say that the city has no secrets anymore. Every street corner, every avenue, every building, every bridge is unique and beautiful and has surely been the center of attention in a movie. It is therefore not unusual to once in a while bump into cameras on the streets. The city changes into a Hollywood movie set. Like two months ago when on a sunny Sunday morning my Montmartre metro station was covered with white fake snow carpets. Or last year when a well kept yellow old timer blocked the afternoon traffic in st germain des pres. And there are the occasional screaming paparazzi waiting outside of the glittery hotel Costes for a celebrity to finish their lunch or cocktails. I can only confirm that Paris is the absolute perfect backdrop for any given movie, the city changes character when entering another arrondissement or going from the left onto the right bank.

I love the way a movie can take you to exotic and exciting places that you have never been before and give you an instant motivation to go there. Who doesn't want to go to NYC after their first introduction to Carrie Bradshaw, while feeling the excitement and restlessness of the big apple bubbling of the screen? Or Beverly Hills on a Pretty woman shopping spree with mister perfect his credit card?  

 

And then there is the wonder of old Hollywood movies, from a decade when the movie set women were dressed in elegant and glamorous designs by the likes of Edith Head and Ceil Chapman.

When I have a hot date with my city, I know I am in for a treat when going to one of the small old-school movie theaters in the quartier Latin, where the seats are still covered in authentic red velvet and silk fabric is drapped above the movie screens. All the starlets from the Hollywood golden years come back to life on a daily basis and take you to another decade when women still dressed like women in sophisticated ensembles with matching hats and gloves. And we must surely not forget about the exquisite sequenced evening gowns in which they seduced their male antagonists.

Before coming to Paris, the only black and white movie I had ever seen was breakfast at Tiffany's. But living in a city as Paris, where nostalgia is embraced with open arms, I have evolved to loving everything old. From flea markets to vintage clothes, and from crooners music to black & white movies.

Some people say that nostalgia is for those whom are not happy in their current life, in part because they think their life would have been better when living in another era. I don't really see it that way. What is so wrong with enjoying and dreaming away with an old Hollywood classic, when real glamour was still alive?

Juggling with words

- The French woman in me -

My boyfriend and I live in a tiny Parisian apartment filled with books, high up into the little nooks of our ceilings. They aren't mine; they belong to him who has read them all. My humble collection still houses at my parents place, since all of our walls are already filled. Most of his novels are written by authors I have never heard off and have trouble with the pronunciation of their last names. I love the smell that the books bring to our home, it reminds me of going to the local library when I was young. Recently we have taken on the challenge of putting the entire collection in alphabetical order. The authentic wooden floors of our midget apartment were filled with books during a 2 day period while we struggled with the pages and pages filled with words and letters.

The French have a very rich literary heritage, and they carry around a book all day the same way they carry around their wallet. They read everywhere and anywhere, on the metro, in the street, on the toilet. Everybody has a wide knowledge off the written word and take it as a necessity to have read all the French literary classics. Unfortunately I stand in great contrast to that vision, I read fashion magazines from cover to cover and weep with Danielle Steel novels and books by the name of Bergdorf Blondes and Last night at Chateau Marmont. The French are great with words, and I guess their reading culture has got something to do with it.

My boyfriend too, he is great with words, French words that are. To me he is a great master of the French language and I often have a hard time following his opinions and thoughts. I have to admit that I sometimes nod even though I didn't understand a single word of what he was saying. My knowledge of the French language has evolved and I can carry on a conversation, but sometimes it just goes to fast for me and the cultural difference gets to prominent. Jokes for that matter are a great example. Cracking jokes in a language other than your mother tongue seems so unnatural and when people start laughing at the table and you are the only silent person there, your senses tell you that you have just missed out on a joke. Getting angry is worse, in the mist of your boiling point; it is extremely hard to come up with the right words to say at the moment you should say them. They always seem to dawn on me to late, when my angriness has been blown off by steam trough my ears.

 I always feel like a different person in a different language. And although 99% of what you say isn’t coming out of your mouth, I cannot help but feel inadequate when I don't seem to come up with the right words to say. Reading should help, but I have a hard time keeping concentrated on French books. The spoken and written language are so different from one another that I feel lost when I enter chapter 2 of any French written novel. I don't seem to have that struggle when entering the entertainment of an English written book. The language comes more natural to me and I seem to wander through English novels with the same ease as wandering through a department store while shopping for shoes.

But, throughout the years and while living abroad, I have come to embrace the woman I am in French, English and Flemish, hoping that my true self shines through regardless of the words that come out of my mouth.