Paris Memories
Cert: 15 | ★★★★✩

Acclaimed Jewish French filmmaker Alice Winocour’s latest film focuses on the aftermath of the 2015 terror attacks in Paris.

During a performance of the rock band Eagles of Death Metal, terrorists gunned down 130 concert goers at the Bataclan in what was France’s worst-ever mass shooting.

Only 40 of the concert goers survived. One of them was Winocour’s younger brother and during the attack, Winocour was in constant text contact with him as he lay hiding. She has dedicated Paris Memories to him.

In the film, Parisian journalist and translator Mia, played by the Jewish actor Virginie Efira, survives a terrorist attack on a restaurant in Paris.

We meet her when she is struggling to piece together the events of that terrible night.

The troubled young woman meets with other survivors, including Thomas (La Haine star Benoît Magimel) with whom she forges a close friendship and, it is suggested, possibly more.

As she tries to make sense of her feelings of dislocation, Mia goes in search of the young chef, played by Senegalese-born actor Amadou Mbow, whom she believes helped save her life.

Virginie Efira in Paris Memories Credit Pathe (3)

Virginie Efira (Photo: Pathe)

She meet others survivors too and finds solace in the connection as she slowly rebuilds her life and reconnects with the city she loves, while knowing that she and Paris will never be the same again.

Winocour sets her film three months after the attack, but we get glimpses of the night through careful flashback.

But there is no gratutious bloodshed here. Rather, Winocour and her writing team focus on unravelling Mia’s feelings of guilt, alienation and, finally, acceptance.

At one point, she is accused by another survivor of having barricaded herself in the toilet to save herself and thus letting others die, Mia denies this, feeling sure she would never do such a thing, but doubt lingers.

At all times, Efira is simply sublime as a woman whose life has suffered a cataclysmic reset, but who still manages love and compassion among the rubble.

‘Paris Memories’ is in cinemas from Friday.