Paris Memories: Delicate, affecting drama explores life after a terrorist attack

The Parisian writer-director Alice Winocour has a talent for world-building, whether imagining a love affair between the 19th-century neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot and his patient Augustine or oppressed Turkish sisters growing up during the 2010s in the Oscar-nominated Mustang. Proxima, the film-maker’s most recent and ambitious work, travelled between Star City and the Baikonur Cosmodrome – with co-operation from the European Space Agency and Roscosmos – to dramatise the dilemmas faced by a working mother.

Paris Memories marks a geographical homecoming for the director. Drawing from her brother’s experiences at the Bataclan in 2015 – and following on from the recent similarly-themed dramas Amanda, One Year and One Night, and November – Winocour’s film explores life after a terrorist attack.

Mia (Virginie Efira) works as a Russian translator and journalist. She is married to Vincent, a doctor (Grégoire Colin). Her shiny motorbike appears to be the most dramatic thing about her until the evening she walks into a bistro, sits down to jot some notes with a fountain pen, and orders a glass of wine. She cannot remember the mass shooting that follows.

Her struggle to return to normalcy leaves her feeling alienated at social gatherings and estranged within her marriage. Her initial visits to a survivors’ group only add to her confusion. Her attachment to Thomas (Benoît Magimel), another survivor, blossoms as her relationship with Vincent seems to wither.

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This delicate drama explores PTSD with considerably less heft and action than Winocour brought to her 2015 thriller, Disorder.

The increasingly essential Efira works in nuanced movements. Magimel, on a career hot streak, grafts charm and charisma to the slightly underdeveloped Thomas. Strong supporting players include Nastya Golubeva Carax.

It takes a while for Winocour’s gentle drama to consolidate into a satisfying detective story as Mia pieces together the events of that fateful evening. The denouement is dramatically convenient but undeniably moving.