Reyes y reina

There is SO much going on in this film, but it has rhythm, pace, a great soundtrack, and enjoyable, charismatic performances, that kept me engaged from the word go. The editing owes something to 60s Godard - lots of jump cuts in the dialogue scenes - and 80s Rohmer - anguished 30 somethings worrying about true love - and possibly, in its tour de force final sequence, a reference to La Jetee, which is also of course about memory, fate, and mortality. And then there is the rather bizarre Audrey reference which opens the film: as Nora steps out of a black car, clutching her morning coffee, clothed in black, her hair wound up on her head, the strains of Monn River sound. So far, so post-modern. This is is a film that is freighted with filmic, literary, theatrical (esp Shakespeare and the Tempest) and artistic allusions, but that uses these in service of a specific point: that these cultural references and allusions make the web of our being - that art is how we communicate to each other (notice that all the characters communicate through art - the gift Nora gives her father, the music Ismael dances to, the book the father writes - even the 'murder scene' is filmed through a highly stylised mise-en-scene): that 'artifice' can reveal the deepest and most moving of human emotions. It is a beautiful film that will move you and make you leave the cinema feeling transported. And Deneuve is just great! I love the bit where Ismael asks her if anyone has ever told her she's beautiful, and she gives a slight twist of her lips, sighs, and says, yes, she has heard that before. Just because something has become cliché, doesn't mean it's not true.

"Kings and Queen (Rois et reine)" is a deceptively beautiful looking exploration of the differences between appearances and substance.

Our first impressions of each parallel character who seems to have no relation with any other character undergo a complete turn-around by the time we have finished circling around them in time and space at the end of the film, especially as we begin to realize they are unreliable, self-serving narrators of their own experiences.

Each person is part of a very modern blended family, both by genetics and selection, and faces the most quotidian of life cycle decisions -- life, birth, marriage, paying bills, parent/child responsibilities, Laingian sanity and particularly death -- and makes a different choice how to handle them, whether active or passive, peremptorily or as fate.

But each choice leads them to the next unexpected plateau of choices with guilt hanging on each move. For each, doing the right thing means something completely different as each responds differently to an emotional and physical crisis.

Though psychoanalysis is drolly mocked as just another philosophy, each character may be eccentric or seriously crazy and undergoes Freudian traumatizations by family in casually cruel ways that alternate between funny and shocking (and sometimes absurd).

Director/co-writer Arnaud Desplechin revels in the diversity of his characters, so that as their orbits collide they can hardly communicate because their frames of reference are so different.

The acting brilliantly matches the unexpected revelations that flash back to let us know how each character got to be this person and the transformations to where they are going. Emmanuelle Devos as "Nora" lusciously fills the screen even as we find that her nonchalant beauty masks the devastation she leaves in her wake as it helps her use others for her selfish needs.

Desplechin has frequently cited Woody Allen as an influence (and "Seinfeld"), and Mathieu Amalric's Ismaël is a tribute to that talkative, intellectual Jewish persona and Philip Roth is mentioned as well, though this character is much more up on hip pop music and surprisingly matures as he gains far more humanity than his New York inspirations.

The film is long and slow, but curiosity about how each character got to where the film started is involving.

It's impossible to keep up with all the erudite references to poetry (Desplechin says the title comes from a chess metaphor in a French poem: "King without kingdom/ Queen without a scene/ Castle broken/ Bishop betrayed/ Fool as a brave man"), literature, mythology, art, music and film ("Moon River" seems to be used frequently these days).

Eric Gautier's cinematography is sensual and is particularly dreamy when an awful event occurs.

The production design creates illustrative environments for each person and family, as every object around each character has ironic counterpoint to the dialog.

The soundtrack eclectically extends from electronica to klezmer to hip hop to singer/songwriters Paul Weller and Randy Newman to classical and more that reflect the characters' psychological mise en scenes.

Armand Deplechin's "Rois et Reine" offers a lot of different ideas, plots and subplots. Unfortunately, most of them aren't as fully realized as in his other, better made films. Then, the copy that is showing at New York's Lincoln Plaza complex, has a washed out look to it, and the subtitles aren't visible at times. The viewer has to strain the eyes in order to get all what's going on in this complex tale. This is a big problem for foreign films with subtitles that seem to fade in the picture itself. Also, at the session we went there was an annoying group of ladies who, evidently, must have been watching another film, as they kept laughing at times when they should have remained silent.

At any rate, this is a complex film that seems to have a lot of influences, mainly mythological and even it has shades of Shakespeare's King Lear. At two hours and forty minutes in length, the film could have used some badly needed trimming. It appears M. Desplechin don't know when to cut some of the things one sees in different sequences that could have been helped with the principle that "less is more".

One thing the director can't be blamed for is the wonderful performances he gets from all his actors, especially, the luminous Emmanuelle Devos, who does an amazing work portraying Nora, the woman at the center of the story. Also good, Mathieu Amalric, who is Ismael, the man that connects a lot of different points to the story. Maurice Garrel, as Nora's dying father is compelling. Valentin Legong as little Elias is also a great asset.

Let's hope M. Desplechin new venture will be a bit tighter in his future work.

The death of a loved one is never pretty, but may be particularly hard in our atomic age; the news of an ailing relative is a bolt from the blue, external to our everyday lives. And unlikely people can make good parents, exactly because being a good parent is not something you achieve by following instructions. These are the sort of thoughts provoked by watching 'Kings and Queen', a French movie about a woman with a dying father, a mad ex-lover and a teenage son. There are definitely some perceptive moments, but overall, the film is a bit uneven; the two halves of the plot (one centred on the woman and her father, the other on her ex) are quite disconnected and also distinct in tone: the former cool and reflective, the latter somewhat riotous; although they come together at the end, this doesn't quite feel like a necessary ending, while other plot lines (such as one centred on the lead character's sister) are not developed. Still, I liked the movie's insight into the selfishness of modern lives and attitudes, which fall short of evil but lie exposed as inadequate under duress: there's a message in this which many could heed.

I was so hoping it would live up to the hype...and it almost does - but you know how it goes with extravagantly praised films.

Desplechin's 1996 "My Sex Life" was brilliant - a rambling, shambling, thoroughly engaging 3 hour trip through the lives of a group of rambling, shambling, lost characters, made by a director looking to pour as much raw life into a film as possible and let the rest sort itself out. He has no interest in a well-knit story....

This somehow doesn't work as well here...what is missing is the "engaging" part. This isn't a matter of his being unable edit himself; it's just characters and their situations just seem less able to cross the divide and touch you.

But i'm all in favor of Desplechin's intentions. This is a director definitely worthy of trust and respect. And can all those critics be wrong? I'm going to see this again.

"My Sex Life" had the benefit of three wonderful actors: Mathieu Almaric, Jeanne Ballibar and Emmanuelle Devos...we need more films from all three. Almaric and Devos return here. He is, as always, terrifically fun to watch. But this is her movie...Emmanuelle Devos seems to be coming into her own now, after years of playing lesser roles (The Beat my Heart Skipped). She is a marvel. Always playing the victim, stoic and long-suffering, and always bringing to this role a huge richness of feeling. She is heart-wrenching here, as she was in "My Sex Life", which she practically stole. And what a remarkable look she has...one moment the ugly duckling, another moment a ravishing beauty. I can't take my eyes off her. A great actress.