巴黎必修课

Etienne, a young man from Lyon, is eager to move to Paris to study film directing at the Sorbonne. He leaves behind his girlfriend Lucie, promising to call her regularly via Skype. On his course, he meets Jean-Noël and Mathias, who are also students at the university. They share their passion for cinema and discuss various topics, including the cinematic canon, reading texts by Flaubert and Pasolini, listening to Bach and Mahler, and arguing about various films. Jean-Noël proves to be an agreeable friend who tries to strengthen Etienne’s fragile self-confidence. On the other hand, Mathias often comes across as stern, aloof, and mysterious. Fond of arguing, he has a habit of disappearing for weeks on end without the others knowing where he is. Nobody gets to see his student film, either. Etienne is particularly crestfallen when he discovers by chance that Mathias shares a secret with Annabelle, an idealistic young woman who lives in Etienne’s shared flat and with whom he is secretly in love. Jean Paul Civeyrac’s tenderly melancholic black-and-white study of these young people’s encounter with art and life is at the same time a declaration of love for classic cinema and the city of Paris.