A sober PTSD drama with the haunting air of a ghost story, this acute character study from French director Alice Winocour (Proxima) follows the aftermath of a Bataclan-style massacre from the perspective of one survivor suffering memory loss. It’s a sensitive, careful film with real emotional intelligence, but no less gripping for swerving dramatic fireworks in favour of quieter, more observational moments.
That survivor, Mia (Benedetta’s Virginie Efira), is a forty-something Parisian translator who we meet happy in her work and, seemingly, in her relationship with a workaholic doctor. And it’s his demanding job that sets in motion a fateful night that sees her caught up in a terrorist attack. He’s called away midway through a dinner date and she spontaneously decides to grab a drink in a nearby bistro. She makes eye contact with a handsome stranger (The Piano Teacher’s Benoît Magimel) celebrating his birthday on an adjacent table, then gunfire breaks out and the rest is a blank.
It’s memories of the night – or the lack of them – that drives Mia in a quest for answers. It leads her back to the scene and the uneasy solace of a survivors’ support group. Erifa, who won a César award for her performance, is magnetic, essaying a woman of deep compassion who is stuck reliving the night. A tentative spark with Magimel’s rehabilitating survivor hangs in the air as she tries to fill in the gaps.
That makes Paris Memories a kind of psychological detective story as well as portrayal of a tragedy’s aftershocks, and Winocour employs impactful flashbacks and deft switches of perspective to broaden it out. We’re placed briefly in the shoes of a grieving teenager (Nastya Golubeva) left orphaned by the attack and the undocumented Senegalese chef who comforted Mia during the massacre, broadening out the story to make it feel like a truly Parisian tragedy.
The slowburn romantic subplot feels a little cheesy after what comes before, but you can’t blame Winocour for wanting to sweeten a sombre story with optimism. Mia learns about ‘a diamond in trauma’ – the element of hope that always emerges from a great tragedy. Revoir Paris loses little of its shine from delivering it.
In US theaters now. In UK cinemas Aug 4.
