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Ah, foreign films. We watch them out of a need to expand our horizons, to become more intelligent, to know that the human experience is the same everywhere. Now, I understand that our country was founded by people who were too priggish to be British, but hundreds of years and a booming porn industry later, you’d think that we would have caught up with Europe.  In Dans Paris, we are made to understand that the French are still on their own little planet, and no matter how many times we watch Footballers Wives on BBC America, we still don’t get them.

Dans Paris opens with an incoherent and rambling monologue from a character named Jonathan who claims not to be the hero of the story (and I’ll get back to that later). He introduces us to the plot – his older brother Paul has recently broken up with his girlfriend Anna, and he’s taking it very much like a little bitch. We are shown several vignettes of the process, which, as uncomfortable as they are, cannot begin to compare with his mourning process.

For at least an hour we watch Paul lounge in bed, shout angrily, and refuse to eat. He’s like a thirteen year old girl on hunger strike for Hannah Montana tickets. At one point, he sings along with a song in English, and all I could think of was, oh, so that’s what we sound like when we sing “99 Luft Balloons!”

Let’s take a moment to discuss the rampant nudity in the film. Now I know, nudity is usually a good point, but in Dans Paris the nudity is on par with homemade porn – the only naked people are the ones who really shouldn’t be. Even in the sex scenes, the nudity is not fun to look at. One character in particular, Anna, delights in showing us her misshapen bosom, and Paul does such dignified things as rub his undercarriage with a towel and rub Anna’s face into his tighty-whitie covered crotch.

Jonathan is clearly the most interesting character in the film. While his older brother mopes and throws temper tantrums, Jonathan is out sleeping with woman after woman – all of whom are much hotter than Anna, none of whom get naked for the camera, each incredibly loose and fickle. Jonathan embodies the fun spirit his brother is missing, and despite his proclamation that he is not the main character, it is his story that grabs you the most.

Even the best of the bonus features centers around Jonathan (or, rather, Louis Garrel). It’s a short film documenting his conversation with four American tourists. He explains to them that he is a film star, and then asks them about their tastes in movies. The four are obviously the kind of ignorant tourists that give Americans such a bad name abroad – they are unable to name their favorite film, any major filmmakers, or recognize who Woody Allen is. It’s painful to watch, though Garrel’s reactions are funny.

Other than the film, the bonus features are limited to deleted scenes, and nothing else. Though the short is amusing, the bonus features do nothing to entice.

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