The 355|Passage des Panoramas — Glass Roof, Two Exits, Neither Good

A covered arcade is a gift to an action director and a trap for everyone inside it. The Paris pursuit in The 355 threads through the Passage des Panoramas, and the geometry does most of the work: one long glazed corridor, a handful of side branches, and no way out except forward or back. Simon Kinberg's team set cameras at several landmark Paris addresses for the opening chase, and this is the one that squeezes.

The passage opened in 1799 and is the oldest survivor of its kind in the city, cut through from the Boulevard Montmartre to the Rue Saint-Marc. It was among the first places in Paris lit by gas. What fills it now is not a museum version of itself — stamp and postcard dealers, an engraver who has been at the same counter for generations, the stage door of the Théâtre des Variétés, and small restaurants whose tables creep into the walkway at one o'clock. L'Arbre à Cannelle still trades behind nineteenth-century chocolate-shop woodwork. The floor is worn tile, the skylight is patched, and nobody has prettied any of it up.

Go in from the Boulevard Montmartre side, directly opposite the entrance to the Passage Jouffroy, and walk it slowly. About two-thirds of the way along the glazing narrows, the light drops, and the noise of the boulevard cuts out completely. That is the moment the film is using. It costs nothing, takes four minutes, and works whether or not you have seen the picture.

Location photo via Wikimedia Commons.