Quelle Surprise! Emily in Paris is Quite… Good???
A lifelong sceptic of anything popular, I had avoided watching Emily in Paris like the plague. I finally cracked after seeing season 3 advertised and actually, it’s not that bad!
It’s cheesy, camp, and the definition of light entertainment, but it’s knowingly so, wincing along with us at the world of vacuous social media influencers and the materialistic lives they pursue.
Paris is the real star of the show though and it’s worth watching for this alone. It’s beautifully made with lots of external shots featuring the spots we all know and love.
Review: Love Transcends in The Last Hours in Paris
‘To love or have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further. There is no other pearl to be found in the dark folds of life.’
Victor HugoAround 200,000 children were born between 1941 and 1945 as a result of liaisons between French women and occupying German troops.
This phenomenon is the starting point for Ruth Druart’s second novel – The Last Hours In Paris, set during the Nazi occupation of France. German translator Sebastian falls in love with Élise, a young Parisian woman who has been trying to help Jewish orphans escape deportation. Here Druart asks questions not often considered in WW2 literature. How far were the occupying Germans victims themselves? What were their attitudes towards the locals? And what was the fate of the women who ‘liaised’ with them?
From Paris to Birmingham – Milan Topalovic revives Art Deco glamour
One of Birmingham’s most beloved artists, Milan Topalovic celebrates the city’s past and present, often evoking the Art Deco glamour of the 1920s. Birmingham has a fascinating industrial past and some great Art Deco architecture, which is a big influence on Milan’s work. Originating in Paris in the 1920s as a successor to the earlier Art Nouveau movement, Art Deco represented luxury, glamour and technological progress. It influenced everything from buildings and furniture, to fashion, trains and ocean liners.
The Electric Cinema, Birmingham Review: While Paris Slept by Ruth Druart
A young woman’s future is torn away in a heartbeat. Herded on to a train bound for Auschwitz, in an act of desperation she entrusts her most precious possession to a stranger. All she has left now is hope.
Author Ruth Druart moved to Paris in 1993. While walking around the city when she first moved there, she was moved by the plaques and monuments to those killed during World War II. Outside a school in Le Marais, she noticed a simple plaque telling of the 260 pupils who were detained by the Nazis during the war. This inspired her to learn more about the German occupation of France.