Paul and Paulette take a bath (15) |Close-Up Film Review

There have been some very successful films about Americans in Paris from the classic musical An American in Paris (1951) to Woody Allen’s literary fantasy Midnight in Paris (2011).  

But in this one the combination of one American, played by French American Jérémie Galiana as naïve young photographer Paul with an otherwise a totally French cast nearly all speaking English is bizarre.  Why was it not in French?  Was its Anglo French director Jethro Massey hoping to capture the English speaking audience members who don’t like subtitles?  As everyone speaks with an accent anyway, that won’t work.  More importantly though the story itself is essentially a  French one and an odd one at that.  Don’t be misled by the title, which sounds like it’s going to be a sex romp film.  There is some sex but that’s not what it’s about

At the opening of the film Paul and his camera capture a young woman, Paulette, kneeling in the Place de la Concorde.  Turns out she has a fascination with the dark side of French history and is re-enacting the execution of Marie Antoinette.   He points out that her executioners would have cut off the queen’s hair before wielding the guillotine and she obligingly hands him a pair of scissors.  And so a bizarre relationship is born in which they invite each other to visit some of the locations of famous murders and executions and re-enact the scenes – without actually killing each other of course. 

Things become even more bizarre when Paul, who is not doing well with the photography, takes a job at an estate agency and his boss, a stern and humourless women, called Goebbels behind her back by her staff, turns out to be Paulette.

However without giving the game away, they manage to continue their odd relationship, even going on a road trip to visit Paulette’s parents via some more dark history locations Paul has discovered.  One of them is an apartment where Hitler is supposed to have stayed, where they re-enact American war photographer Lee Miller’s photograph of herself in Hitler’s bath – hence the title of the movie.  Oh and I should also mention that though the couple do have a slightly odd hetero sexual relationship, Paulette is bisexual with a preference for women. 

On the positive side though what the film has going for it is a fascinating performance from Marie Benati as Paulette.   As the young woman with the odd obsession that Paul falls for, she is a vibrant and charismatic wild child.   As “Goebbels” she is so severe and buttoned up as to be almost unrecognisable.   Like two different women.  

One of the problems with the film for a non-French audience is that, apart from the Marie Antonette one, most of the stories the couple are re-enacting are unknown to us – though Massey does give us a bit of help with some period drawings and newspaper cuttings.  The climactic scenes with Paulette’s parents however are strong and Benati, who has an impressive theatre background and here takes her first leading role in a film, is an impressive  talent.