Paris Belongs to Us

Paris Belongs to Us (, sometimes translated as Paris Is Ours) is a 1961 French mystery film directed by Jacques Rivette. Set in Paris in 1957 and often referencing Shakespeare's play Pericles, the title is highly ironic because the characters are immigrants or alienated and do not feel that they belong at all. The story centres on an essentially innocent, young university student named Anne who, through her older brother, meets a group of friends haunted by mysterious tensions and fears that lead two of them to commit suicide. Among them is her opposite, a femme fatale named Terry who has had affairs with all the men. The source of the malaise affecting the group is never explained, leaving viewers to wonder how far it might be an amalgam of individual imbalances, general existentialist anxiety, or the paranoia of the Cold War as the world faced the possibility of nuclear annihilation. Plot The film opens with the literature student Anne who is reading Shakespeare when she hears sounds of distress in the next room. There she finds a Spanish girl who says her brother Juan has been killed by dark forces. Anne then meets with her own brother Pierre, who takes her to a party held by some of his friends. Initially bored and knowing nobody, she gradually becomes fascinated by mysterious interactions around her. Juan, an anti-Franco refugee, has recently died from a knife wound which some think was a suicide. Philip, an unsteady American refugee from McCarthyism, gets drunk and slaps a smartly dressed woman named Terry, accusing her of causing Juan's death by breaking up with him.