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Paris 36 is a hard-to-classify gem that transports the viewer to a fantasy world of Paris before Nazis rolled their tanks over French dreams and innocence. The characters spontaneously break into song, and the city looks highly stylized, reminiscent of Moulin Rouge. (Actually, the locale is a Paris suburb; the film's French name is Faubourg 36, the French word for "suburb," with "36" the year in which it's set.) The film's breakout star is its ravishing young lead actress, Nora Arnezeder, who plays Douce, a winsome, waifish, but quietly ambitious young chanteuse. Her fate becomes entwined with that of an old music hall, the Chansonia, which has fallen on hard times and then closed during the Depression of the '30s. But a touching, and hilarious, band of French oddballs join together to reopen the old hall, with the jolie Douce as its main attraction. If the plot is a bit predictable, it's still supremely enjoyable, and the characters engaging. Clint Eastwood's longtime cinematographer, Tom Stern, paints a beautiful world of contrasts. Outside, the world may be all gray cobblestone, but inside the Chansonia, awash in rich reds, golds and browns, music, and perhaps even love, can bloom. --A.T. Hurley
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