The film gets off to a deceptive start with the first 3 segments being straightforward love letters with happy or fortuitous endings. Angry man in car falls in love with woman who faints in the street. Juvenile delinquent meets Muslim girl and breaks from his misogynistic gang. Man falls for his soulmate and delivers a heartfelt monologue even though we later learn the soulmate didn't understand a word but pursues him nonetheless. The turning point is the 4th, the Coens' segment with Steve Buscemi which takes a darkly humorous, cynical look at the dysfunction of love where Steve is left bruised on the metro floor while the lovers tromp off having used him for their sick thrill. I think that's the moment we wake up and realize this movie aint no fluffy romcom.

Next is possibly the most challenging segment of the lot, the piece about the Spanish woman singing a lullaby to her baby whom she leaves in daycare before making a tedious commute across Paris to the rich district where a faceless and inconsiderate employer leaves her to take care of a baby. The Spanish woman sings the same lullaby but distracted, staring unhappily out the window. It's a social tragedy. From here on, things get tricky.

The rest of the 13 segments figure in with heavy, heavy irony. Death & loss punctuate a lot of them. Some are more light-hearted than others, but all carry a very dark and tragic undercurrent with no true happy endings. At least not without a bitter sting, such as one of my faves: the man who intends to leave his wife only to learn she has a terminal illness and, over the course of caring for her during her last weeks, falls in love with her only to have her die and leave him forever grieving. So much brilliant irony I lost count. Other segments took a more minimalistic approach, such as the one with the Nigerian immigrant confessing his secret love to the woman who, as the camera & story widen to show us, turns out to be the paramedic attending his death by a random act of violence. I think that's when the film really shows its true colors: this is this NOT a fluffy romcom, it's the antithesis of a romcom.

The next 5 segments lighten the vibe just a bit, at least in terms of plotwise death & outright heartbreak. These are more conceptual tragedies: couples whose romance has lost its spark and who find communion in unlikely ways (sarcastic jabs over wine while discussing divorce proceedings, or staging elaborate role-playing at a strip club to spark romance, or quoting Oscar Wilde at a cemetery to repair an impending breakup, etc). The irony knob is turned up to the max. Tragedy not necessarily shown but certainly implied.

The final segment is what brings it all together. This is the most uneventful but one of the most thematically dense pieces of the bunch. A middle aged, unremarkable, somewhat annoyingly toursty-looking woman narrates in her awful Americanized French as she vacations in Paris. She is the ultimate outsider, she talks to no one except briefly to ask directions to a restaurant where she dines alone in a corner watching everyone else. Through her narration we learn that her life is essentially one big tragedy though she doesn't realize it herself. She sees beauty in the world and longs to share it with someone whom we know she will never find. The piece closes with her alone on a park bench, the outsider in her awkward invisible bubble amongst masses. She has an epiphany (joy with some sadness) that she is the soulmate of Paris.

Brilliant film. Disjointed and episodic by nature, but it does tell a story. And it aint a lovestory that's for sure.