14e arrondissement

The film begins with Carol, unseen, getting up in front of a class to talk about her trip to Paris. She starts by saying she will talk about a "special day" she had in Paris. Special day makes you assume she is going to be happy or do something exciting, but that is not what you get. She is speaking French, in a way that takes me back to 8th grade French class. Her poorly pronounced French with an uneven rhythm, as if she is struggling to come up with words before they come out of her mouth, paints a perfect image of your stereotypical American traveling abroad. This is backed up when we see Carol, a middle aged women with a fanny pack, marching past a tour both to go on a "genuine foreign adventure". At this point we can all relate to Carol to some extent. I think almost anyone who has traveled has attempted to find their own path to connect with a city. I would have to guess that relating to Carol, and all of her tourist awkwardness was the goal of the director. She embodies the awkward American tourist in all of us.

 As the film goes on we see Carol wandering around the city. As she wanders she seems to be disconnected from everyone. Through out the film she is only seen to talk to a single person. Although we know she must talk to people to get food, get into her hotel ect., by showing her lack of interactions with locals an image of loneliness builds until she eventually addresses it when looking over the city. She says she wishes she had someone to share the beauty of the view with. This can be extended to mean that she wishes she had someone to share the entire experience with. She has been trying so hard to have a good time and have a valuable experience, but she is disappointed. She is isolated in a city of hundreds of thousands. So she has marched all over the city in all of her awkward glory attempting to force an experience. Now she is standing on the top of a building looking over the massive city feeling alone she just wants someone to share the experience with. Up to this point in the film there has been a sense of expectation from Carol and its being spoiled. In R.W. Grays review he says "Carol refuses to be exclusively a tourist because she resists becoming a victim to her expectations, her homesickness for her dogs, or her jet lag." I think at the top of the building Carol feels as if she has lost this battle. All of these factors have come to overwhelm her. She stares out over the city feeling as if she has lost and she won't find meaning in her trip. But at the same time she says she is a happy person. We aren't meant to feel bad for her, and she isn't necessarily  sad at this point. When watching I felt that she was just disappointed. She had expectations in her head whether she wanted to or not, she had them and she feels her trip didn't meet up.

The last scene brings Carol to a park where she is eating a sandwich. She seems almost to have given up. She just wants to eat her sandwich in a nice park and that would be enough. At this point it seems that there is a change in her attitude. She notes the sandwich tasted "very good". This is a change as throughout the film she had been disappointed in the food. She then looks around the park and her attitude changes. She says "...I felt, at the same time, joy and sadness. But not too much sadness, because I felt alive." At this point in the film Carol has finally let go of her expectations. She is present in the situation she is in. She's no longer looking for something she is just where she is and thats enough. She's content, she's alive, and thats what she was looking for and she didn't even realize it.

Although this film was set in Paris it could of been placed in any major city. The theme of the film is the burden of expectations, which I think most people can relate to. Especially in the United States where we are constantly bombarded with media that raises our expectations of everything. I think the film comments on that a bit and even contradicts in in saying that satisfaction comes when there are no expectations. Although I think it could be placed in another major city Paris makes a lot of sense. It being one of the most prominent cities in the world, most people have an image of what it would be like in their head whether they have been there or not. This aids in us connecting to the story, the protagonist and her feelings throughout her "special day".