Paris, 13th District (2021)
Directed by Jacques Audiard
Sex complicates everything. The canines on that axiom pierce deeper than you’d expect and I’ve had to nurse the wounds on that one firsthand, several times. Fundamentally, one of the harder concepts for me to grasp was how someone can remove emotions from what’s intended to be a purely physical, biological function. Or how people pretend like they’re able to do that. It remains a mystery to me; this antiquated mode of thinking is likely a byproduct of certain patriarchal rhetoric that’s been beaten into me. But I’d been in a lengthy, decade-plus long relationship with a single partner, strayed, and couldn’t remove that emotional component from the exercise. Even those one-nighters could’ve only happened if there was some tangible, if not superficial, bond that brought two people together. I don’t get jealous of others who’ve had meaningful, long-term relationships. I’ve been there. It gave my life meaning and I can only hope it did the same for my partners. But it’s the flip-side, partners who confess having no emotional connection during sex, that are hard for me to understand. Sex as little more than organs going in and out of organs; it’s lonely.
Camille (Makita Samba) is a cocky, 30-something grad student who answers Emilie’s (Lucie Zhang) ad looking for a roommate. Initially confusing him as a woman, Emilie entertains Camille’s bravado and confidence. When asked about his sexuality, Camille provides his maxim: “fuck first, ask later.” The two move in and engage in some deeply convincing romps, with Emilie warning Camille not to fall in love with her. It’s Emilie who ends up having unreciprocated feelings for Camille, who refuses to commit to her in any meaningful way. The tension that this creates eventually forces Camille out of Emilie’s life. Time passes and Emilie finds some modicum of self–discovery when losing her dead-end call center job, while Camille takes on a job at a real estate firm. A secondary narrative involving Nora (Noémie Merlant) , a law student who gets confused for a sex worker, ends up working with Camille. After a warming out process, the two end up as something of a couple. But in this situation, it’s Camille who finds himself craving something greater than the intimacy that Nora (doesn’t) provide. And in that hollowness, he finds himself returning to Emilie, not so much out of despair but out of recognition of the pain he put her through.
Paul Guilhaume’s stark black and white photography and Jacques Audiard’s percussive filmmaking gives Paris, 13th District an effortless grace. It mirrors a lot of the breezy aesthetic sensibilities of other similar-minded films like Noah Baumbach’s Frances Ha and, more recently, Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World. Paris doesn’t quite offer the same measure of millennial insight that those films suggested, but the diverse cast and more-focused examination of sexuality does give it its own unique edge. While the film meanders and loses the thread numerous times throughout its runtime, Audiard’s capacity to provoke strong performances from his actors remains a constant. He’s not the flashiest of filmmakers and has a penchant for simple emotional crescendos, but his spell works on me. And for a film to examine this particular brand of millennial sexual angst, I found it to be compelling in how palatable he makes it.