Does she hate her own country?

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I've never been to France myself and so I can't really comment on how accurate she was, but I distinctly remember when I was visiting Denmark several years ago there was a strange encounter with a seemingly anti-American woman the one and only time I stopped into a McDonalds.

And I've definitely gotten the vibe from other trips that there might be a little more of a xenophobic attitude in Europe than blue state Americans are used to encountering. After years of living in New York, I've see typical religious-based bigotry but not much xenophobia, probably because America doesn't border many other countries and New York isn't anywhere near Mexico. Whereas in Europe the countries are so close together that it wouldn't surprise me if negative stereotyping of people from specific nations and regions was more pervasive there. And I guess maybe Julie Delpy might have taken on a more American perspective over the years.

Either way though it seems so strange to me as someone from the nation that gave the world 8 years of George Bush that Delpy's arguably "negative" depiction of her home country is seen as so unusual or even taboo. In the U.S., it's not considered a big deal at all for filmmakers to occasionally dump on some aspects of our country. For instance, I don't recall anyone remarking on the scene where Adam Goldberg tricks the Bush-loving Americans (probably because the American audiences likely to see the film are overwhelmingly anti-Bush). I know I frequently comment on how sexually repressed my home country is in comparison to Europe. In Europe there seem to be an endless supply of statues of naked people while hardly any in the U.S. I think it's healthy to have a love-hate relationship with your home country and I think that that perspective tends to come out when a person spends time living in other countries rather than just being a tourist.

It's not a tourist attraction movie but it's not showing anything in a light that doesn't exist. I'm French and I've lived in Paris for over 10 years and nothing was invented out of thin air. Sure, Amelie sold more plane tickets to American tourists but that's a totally complacent fairy tale about Paris. The real Paris has *beep* and tourist traps and yes pickpockets and racists.

It sure is beautiful though.

For every lie I unlearn I learn something new - Ani Difranco

I think she did a really good side of portraying Paris's beauty but without romanticizing it, but the purpose of the movie was to show Paris from an American perspective. It can be quite an unfriendly, alienating place if you don't speak French or aren't familiar with the customs there. She was just showing what it was like if you are an outsider visiting the city, which many of the people who go there are. There can be all these beautiful amazing things all around you, but you'll still end up feeling like hell if you can't figure it out. It wasn't negative, just honest. There are plenty of other movies that aggrandize Paris from all perspectives, so it was refreshing to see something different.

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I don't think she hates France, however she's not in the tourism business, but in the movie business. She's making a movie not a promo ad.

If you visit Paris, all of the things depicted in the movie could happen to you, however it's unlikely that they would all happen to you in two days !

Millions of people visit France as it is, so while some things need to improve (and have in fact improved since 2007) like the attitude of service people and their abilities with the English language, at the same time I don't think people would like to visit a "generic" country where everything would be just like home, except for the older buildings.