Our screening on Friday 4 September will be followed by a Q&A with director Jethro Massey.

An unconventional romantic comedy about a young American photographer and a French girl with a taste for the macabre. Paul & Paulette’s chance encounter on a Parisian boulevard sparks an unusual friendship that grows around a dark game: reenacting scenes of notorious crimes from bygone eras at the sites they occurred. As their morbid road trip approaches the more recent past it becomes more uncomfortable, blurring the lines between reality and fantasy, but finding a surprising joy in the darker corners of humanity.

The Garden Cinema View:

Paul & Paulette Take a Bath begins as a provocation with echoes of French New Wave and Greek Weird Wave aesthetics. However, beneath its quirky surface, lies a deeper character study exploring the exhilaration of new love and the inherent messiness of human relationships. The film demonstrates how vulnerability trumps posturing, with its untidy romantic conclusion championing genuine connection.

While critics compare it to Before Sunrise, its formal freedom and sexual energy is closer to Betty Blue. Marc Tassell's music beautifully enhances the film's emotional journey, though the Hitler jokes feel inappropriately risqué and detract from this otherwise thoughtful exploration of relationship dynamics.

This film contains flickering or flashing lights that may affect those with photosensitive epilepsy

Cast:
Marie Benati, Jérémie Galiana