A film ripe for this moment, Roaring 20’s, by French director Elisabeth Vogler, exemplifies the freedom of emerging from Covid-19 lockdown. In a single 85-minute shot, the camera trails two dozen characters conversing, mostly in pairs, as they wind their way through Paris over the course of an afternoon. Fast paced and exuberant, the film captures the city’s joie de vivre.

Like Richard Linklater’s Slacker (1990), the camera never stays with one conversation for very long before shifting to another nearby. But unlike the oddballs in the older film, these young adults represent a range of types and ethnicities who expound on subjects personal and newsworthy in 12 or so vignettes.

Topics of conversation are generally compelling and run the gamut from pornography to shoplifting to the demographics of a particular neighborhood. Some individuals do not have a conversation partner—one leaves a voice memo on his phone and a runaway bride talks to what seems to be an abandoned baby in a stroller. A standout chat involves two women walking along the Seine, discussing the artist Anish Kapoor’s exclusive rights to the world’s blackest black pigment.  

The pandemic is barely referenced, and masking up appears only when a pair descends into the metro. Close interactions, hugging, and casual touching are as natural as they were pre-pandemic. One actor/comedian, though, wants to stay masked for “a richer freedom,” although, as he dons a white, full-face covering, his reasoning may be stage-based: he plans to perform some mime.

Less successful scenes seem like self-conscious attempts at profundity, or, in the case of a metro passenger behaving in an erratic way, like an acting class exercise, but the few missteps are forgivable in the adventurous, experimental film full of professional actors and non-actors alike.

Paris makes for a beautiful backdrop, of course, with narrow streets, cafes, parks, and even tourists outside the Louvre enlivening what is a dialogue-heavy feature (with swift subtitles for those who don’t know French). Shot in the summer of 2020, the choreographed action emphasizes a world in motion.

Just before a finale that gathers the cast for a group song against the backdrop of the city, a tarot card reader tells her friend that, like the decade that followed World War I, “a century only starts with the 20s.” Expectantly, she adds, “For us, it’s starting now.”

As a world premiere at the Tribeca Festival in the international narrative competition, Vogler’s cinematography received an honor in its category, and there was a special jury mention for the ensemble “for their characters and dialogue both written and improvised seamlessly that provide a portrait timeless and true.” This is Vogler’s sophomore feature. The first, Paris Is Us, another ode to the city through the eyes of young people, is available on Netflix.

With its focus on spirited interactions and freedom of movement, Roaring 20’s feels especially satisfying right now for those of us surfacing after a circumscribed existence, now that the days of quarantine are hopefully in the rearview mirror.