Going crazy, French style

Did Woody Allen inspire this year's Le French May cinema programme, entitled "A Touch of Madness: The 20s"? In Midnight in Paris (2011), the American director transports modern viewers back to France in the 1920s. For the cinema component of the Franco cultural fête - which opens on May 3 - a similar journey in time is offered.

The selections include favourites set in the period as well as historical classics made in the 1920s. The "crazy years", as the era after the first world war was called, represented the halcyon days of Parisian cultural and artistic expression. The city exploded with eye-opening liberalism and exciting artistic inspiration, and the buzz attracted writers, painters, musicians and a flamboyant society that jitterbugged and drank champagne 'til dawn - or so Woody would have us believe.

Some of the Le French May films present a slightly less rose-coloured view of this Parisian scene. Dutch director Jan Kounen's Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky (2009) suggests the two 20th-century cultural icons had a torrid affair which dovetailed with their personal creativity. It might have been the closing film of the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, but it was still overshadowed by another biography, Coco Before Chanel, released months earlier in France.

Still, the Chanel/Stravinsky story is fascinating fiction about artists and their artistic endeavours. If the passions on screen are less an example of joie de vivre than selfish obsession, that's the prerogative of geniuses. And who knew The Rite of Spring would so directly contribute to Chanel No 5?

Olivier Dahan's La Vie En Rose (2007) offers an even less glamorous side of gay Paris. The biographical drama of singer Edith Piaf, featuring Marion Cotillard's Oscar-winning performance, is also an unflinching portrayal of the city's downtrodden and poor underbelly. The wealth and fame Piaf would later achieve still paled compared to the poverty, begging and abuse she and other characters struggled to endure during the low times. The film is a cold reminder that some of those indulging in Paris at midnight drank not to celebrate but in misery.

Outside the City of Lights, life resembled the mainly provincial existence in Claude Berri's masterful 1986 duology, Jean de Florette and Manon of the Spring ( Manon des Sources). Two of the most successful and beloved films of modern French cinema, both were nominated for several Cesar awards (the French Oscar) and the all-star cast - including Daniel Auteuil, Gerard Depardieu and Yves Montand, with Emmanuelle Beart in a breakout role as Manon in the second work - ensured it was a massive hit.