Rois et reine
France,
2005, 150 min
Shown in 2005
CREDITS
- dir
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Arnaud Desplechin
- prod
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Pascal Caucheteux
- scr
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Roger Bohbot, Arnaud Desplechin
- cam
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Eric Gautier
- editor
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Laurence Briaud
- mus
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Henry Mancini
- cast
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Emmanuelle Devos, Mathieu Amalric, Catherine Deneuve, Jean-Paul Roussillon, Maurice Garrel
- source
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Wellspring Media, Inc, 419 Park Ave. South, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10016. FAX: 212-545-9931. EMAIL: krubin@wellspring.com.
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COMMENTS
Arnaud Desplechin in person.
OTHER
France’s comic-neurotic idol Mathieu Amalric (Best Actor winner at the 2005 César Awards for this role) anchors this lively tale of two very different people, linked by one very obvious fact (their lives are in shambles), and one not-so-apparent one (they once were lovers). Nora (Emmanuelle Devos) is 35 years old, a beloved director of an art gallery, mother of a beautiful 10-year-old boy, widowed from one husband, divorced from another and about to embark on marriage number three, this time to a wealthy businessman. The ex-lover, Ismael (Amalric), is a middle-aged violinist, dodger of tax collectors and quoter of literature who is about to be committed to a mental asylum. Nora’s tale shifts tone when she discovers that her father is dying of cancer. Suddenly fearful of her own future, she seeks out the only man available to provide for her son: Ismael. Too bad Ismael is busy raiding the asylum’s pharmacy with his drug-addled lawyer, courting the hospital’s resident wrist-slasher and locking wits with its psychiatrist (Catherine Deneuve, radiant as usual). Director Desplechin (In the Company of Men, SFIFF 2004) balances his two star-crossed ex-lovers’ tales with just the right blend of the sublime and the burlesque. Tragic and comic, mournful and exhilarating: like life itself, in other words.
FACTOID #80
The globetrotting thespian Anthony Quinn attended the 1969 San Francisco International Film Festival in support of the Opening Night film The Secret of Santa Vittoria, in which he played the half-drunk mayor of an Italian hamlet, protecting his town’s wine collection from German soldiers.
