Paris Memories * * * *

Just a glass of wine, no food or terrorist attack, s'il vous plait. 

Poor old Paris has had more than its fair share of terrorist attacks.  In this film it doesn't specify which attack it is.  Paris Memories focuses on the victims and, as the title suggests, their memories.

It stars the eternally watchable Virginie Efira as Mia. Coming home one night on her motorbike the rain is torrential.  Mia stops and takes refuge in a restaurant, orders a glass of wine, sits at a table, takes out her notebook and simply absorbs the happy atmosphere of other diners: families out for dinner, office groups, a birthday party.  

We relax with her, so when the terrorists strike it really is quite frightening. 

Suddenly gunfire, people stumbling over each other in panic, glass smashing. screaming. It seems to go on for hours, even though it is actually only a short time, but that is probably the way it would feel if you were there.  Mia lays on the floor, under her table, frightened to move. 

Cut to months later and Mia is still struggling to come to terms with it all.  She has a loving husband who is a successful surgeon.  He is patient but he is harboring a little secret of his own, which she suspects.

She moves out of their apartment for a while.  She returns to the restaurant to learn there is a group of people who meet regularly. They were all there that night.  She's not the type to get into group sessions but she sits with them occasionally.  

Outside the restaurant is a man on crutches. She recognises him as being the one who was celebrating his birthday.  She learns that he won't come into the restaurant.  He just looks through the windows.

Her memories are confusing her.  But she's not the only one.  She has the most awful accusation leveled against her. One of the other survivors tells her that she hid in the ladies' bathroom when the attack started and worse she locked the door so other people couldn't take refuge in there. Now she feels terrible shame.  But she still can't be sure. 

She gets talking to the man on crutches and learns more about him.  His name is Thomas. Unexpectedly she visits him when he has to return to hospital for further work on his leg. She asks him about his memories. He reassures her she was not in the bathroom, for he had made a promise to himself that he was going to introduce himself to her. There is a mutual attraction between them. 

Mia gets some relief as her memories return. She was with another person - a member of staff - a cook, who held her hand and reassured her.  Mia makes it her mission to find him.  Not easy as he was an immigrant who has moved on.

This beautifully constructed film is by Alice Winocour who also gave us Mustang and Proxima.  It's the best I have seen at the French Film Festival 23 so far.