Fantastic Movie (unless you have an axe to grind).

After watching a DVD of this fantastic movie, I came here to see what people had said about it. The French person who wrote in 2006 is the only one who talks about the movie - and that person loves it. I am not French, but I have been to Paris numerous times. One can fault the film on a number of fronts, I suppose, but as a film that describes Paris in the final days of the occupation, it is a gem. First of all, this is not some CGI recreation of Paris. Director Rene Clement actually shot on the streets. Some of the film's footage is amazing. The book certainly contains more detail. But the film follows the book without fail, dramatizing, over and over again, what I've always found fascinating and moving about that period in France. That is, the constant crisscrossing of social/political upheaval with mundane, daily lives. The man walking his dog while a gun battle rages down the street - taken from a famous photo - typifies a kind of Parisian stubbornness, that combination of pride and despair; daily life may be dangerous at times, but to avoid these things would be treason. Certainly, in real life there were French collaborators, anti-semites, and god knows what else; but so what? I don't think the film is saying there weren't. To see the film and only respond to what's not there seems, in this instance, weird. IS PARIS BURNING does not promote fascism, or anything negative. Besides, the city itself is the main character; even the Nazi had to equivocate in the presence of Paris. That's the movie, that's what it's about, and I thought it was terrific.