A Mermaid in Paris (Fantasia Fest)
**Seen for the 2020 Fantasia International Film Festival**
If you ever wondered what it would have been like for Tim Burton or Jean-Pierre Jeunet to direct “Splash,” the latest film from pop musician Mathias Malzieu is a pretty good indicator. The film is a romantic, and comedic, fantasy about a man whose heart is lacking for passion, for imagination, and he finds both when a mermaid washes up from the Seine. It’s also musical, as well, because of course it has to be; after all, the mermaid’s song can inspire men to fall in love with her, leading them to their doom. What if the man’s heart is hardened, though?
Gaspard (Nicolas Duvauchelle) and his father, Camille (Tchéky Karyo), are trying to keep their famed underground restaurant in Paris, the Flower Burger, as the same whimsical place for imagination and love that Gaspard’s mother, who started it back in the ’40s, intended it to be. When it first opened, it was a place for resistance fighters to meet, but it has grown into a place of music and frivolity and joy of life. Gaspard really does not want to lose that; he holds on to the restaurant’s book, which is essentially an oral history dressed up as another piece of whimsy in the film, like a family heirloom that is priceless. He forgets it briefly, however, when he finds Lula (Marilyn Lima), the mermaid of our story, washed up from the river, and he races her to the hospital, thinking they could help her. She eventually makes it to his home, in his bathtub, and our love story progresses from there.
Malzieu’s film is exactly as charming and imaginative as you think it probably will be. The screenplay he writes with Stéphane Landowski hits pretty much every beat you think it will, including having an antagonist (Milena, played by Romane Bohringer) chasing after Lula for the purpose of studying her; there’s a personal motivation, however, that adds more to the character, and comes in handy at just the right moment. And then there’s Rossy (Rossy de Palma), Gaspard’s next-door neighbor whom, apart from having a secret crush on him (at least, I felt so), also becomes a source of exposition for Lula, and a friend who will make things better, or worse, as the story goes on. All of the characters are engaging and entertaining to watch, although our hearts are, ultimately, with Gaspard and Lula. Duvauchelle and Lima are a lovely pair, especially when they share songs together- we can sense that love growing, even if Gaspard claims he cannot. That’s one of the strongest elements of the film, the idea that Lula comes around at just the right time for Gaspard, helping him learn to live again rather than luring him to his death. There’s a sequence with them at the Flower Burger that is as wonderfully staged and romantic as anything you’re likely to see this year.
2020 has been a dumpster fire of a year for so many reasons. But even if it wasn’t, “A Mermaid in Paris” is the sort of lush, visually-inviting fantasy we don’t get enough of in movies, and the fact that it feels mostly done practically, without an emphasis on CG effects, is a reason to fall in love with the film alone. This is a movie intended to make us feel the joy of life, even if we feel as though our ability to appreciate it is gone. For 102 minutes here, I think audiences will feel it again.
