November
14
Desplechin: French Auteur of A Christmas Tale
France's Arnaud Desplechin is one of the most exciting directors working today. I went to hear the writer-director speak at the LA County Museum recently before a screening of Kings and Queen, a movie that makes a lot of sense as a ramp-up to his current A Christmas Tale, which played Cannes, Toronto, New York and AFI. IFC is releasing it in NY and L.A. November 14.
Both Kings and Queen and A Christmas Tale are unpredictable, unusually structured, sprawling family stories starring the always compelling Mathieu Amalric-- Desplechin's discovery and alter-ego who is now a global star and current Bond villain-- Hippolyte Girardot, Emmanuelle Devos, and icon Catherine Deneuve. You get the sense watching them that the filmmaker will try anything, take a hairpin turn into the past or someone's imagination or dreams or fantasies--to get his complex, often autobiographical stories across.
At the LACMA interview by critic Scott Foundas, Desplechin says he shot his first film, 1991's La Vie des Morts, as if it would be his last--with 25 actors. "That's how we started," he says. "When you meet the family you see details of the characters, you see their humanity."
In Desplechin's films, family members go after each other with abandon; resentments run deep. "I am not pro or against family," he says. "It's dysfunctional by nature. It's not here to work. It's here to not work. This film [Kings and Queen] is still a cinematic enigma."
Martin Scorsese inspires him on every film, he says. Desplechin keeps things fluid during filming, uses no storyboards, improvises with the actors, makes many changes on set as he chooses how to express a scene. "I'm not able to say this is my style," he says. "I'm looking at what's happening on set and finding the appropriate style to have it. Even if my characters are very talkative it's a way of reminding that film is a silent art. The perfect movie is the one where you don't recognize me at all as a film by Arnaud Desplechin."
Indiewire interviews Desplechin and NYT's Dennis Lim profiles him. Reviews are strong (87 on Metacritic): here are the NYT's A.O. Scott and EW's Lisa Schwarzbaum. UPDATE: Here's Variety's profile and IFC's Desplechin interview.
[Photo courtesy Indiewire]
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