DVD Review “Paris”

This three part BBC documentary is not to be confused with the feature of the same name that played recently in the International Film Festival.  Funnily enough though it turns out to be exactly the type of television series that is parodied in the film: an attempt at a kind of ‘populist’ history of the French capital fronted by an attractive Gallic woman of academic background who clearly knows her onions from her escargot.

Sandrine Voillet is a charismatic and charming hostess, drawing on her experience as curator of the Louvre to give the English a crash course on everything from the French revolution to the nouvelle vague and plenty more besides.  This is both the show’s strength and weakness: too much information is presented too quickly at too superficial a level.

Part of the problem is structural.  Rather than adopting a linear approach to the material, in the first episode Voillet elects to move from a series of broad generalisations to a more focused look at Napoleon’s contribution to Paris’ evolution.  The second episode then tempts confusion by concentrating on the pre-revolutionary monarchs.  Voillet flits from observations about architecture to cuisine to politics to art to social history, barely pausing for breath.

The final episode works best.  An overview of twentieth century developments, told more or less chronologically, it benefits from first hand interviews and more contemporary news footage.