Just imagine. A builder on the roof of this ancient monument is having a fly cigarette. He throws the butt from the rooftop but instead of finding it's way to the ground, it is blown through one of the slitted windows whereupon it encounters some debris from a pigeon's nest and - well quite literally all hell breaks lose. Jean-Jacques Annaud intersperses real footage of this terrible conflagration with a drama offering us a plausible depiction of just how difficult it was for the Pompiers of Paris to not only tackle this blaze, but to get through the grid-locked streets of their city to the Île de la Cité in the first place. There is a palpable sense of the heat, the smoke - and the fear as the fire fighters tried to coax the water pressure into a meaningful tool to put out the fire whilst what seemed like gallons of molten lead slurped around the roof using the gargoyles as did Charles Laughton back in 1939. The dramatic elements are adequate, but to be honest they don't really matter - most of this is eye-watering. Certainly, you are pretty clearly aware of what is real and what has been staged - the intimate photography leaves us in little doubt of that, but again that doesn't really matter. This film demonstrates the courage and bravery of those tasked with stopping history burning down around them, whilst building on the response nightmare and the religiosity of those who can't quite believe God is allowing this to happen at all! It is all told pacily and effectively in just under two hours. What I really found irritating - exasperating, even, were all the spectators clogging everywhere up - so long as they had a vantage point then the emergency services could wait their turn... Fascinating to watch, and well worth it.

This movie is like the Paris métro: so much better when the aren't people in it.

Look, let's get this out of the way right from the beginning: if there is a scene in this movie with people in it, it's not going to be good. There will either be a problem with the script, with the actor, or the director who's trying too hard to make _Notre Dame de Titanic_ but just ends up with the cinematic equivalent of duck à l'orange with ketchup instead of l'orange.

So why did I love this movie so much? Because, dear reader, me and my over-sensitive ass were moved by these images -- some fabricated but some real -- of Notre Dame nearly burning to the ground.

Not because I love religion, mind you, but because I love Paris, and Notre Dame is as much a symbol of the city as the Eiffel Tower.

So, as a Parisian, I loved this movie for what it taught me about the fire and, especially what it showed me about the fire because _Notre Dame is Burning_ was filmed in IMAX to capture every aspect of the horrible spectacle.

In addition to the quality of the images, I I liked how Annaud would split the screen and show actual footage from that evening spliced beside close-up dramatizations of what was going on inside the building at that precise moment.

While I didn't like the way he directed humans, the two characters that really made this film work for me were the fire and the cathedral herself. If only Annaud had stepped back and filmed their story rather than dousing their energy with forced melodrama and dampening their presence with that of dubious actors.

Like a new lover, I'm able to overlook the film's flaws, blinded as I am by my passion for the city that houses Notre Dame. I'm also completely aware that those who don't share my affinity for the city will justifiably pick apart this film like a man with his best friend's girlfriend. But for those who recognize the place that Notre Dame holds in Paris, this film is burning with a passion that no man can completely extinguish.

(Don't worry, I'm going to see it again and I'll probably hate it)