"Emphasis and harmony showcase. The cinema of Arnaud Desplechin".
The National Cinema Museum is presenting the Emphasis and harmony. The cinema of Arnaud Desplechin film showcase at the Cinema Massimo, from Friday 9 to Tuesday 27 February 2018.
A complete showcase dedicated to this French director and screenwriter and to his vibrant cinema, always tuned into a minute analysis of feelings; a minimalist cinema, alert to its characters’ psychology, as they touch and crisscross each other in dynamics that are always fascinating. The family, growing up, human relationships in their everyday unfolding and in the miniatures of their consequences, are the focus of his interest, both in the documentaries and in the feature films making up his filmography. His debut behind the camera took place in 1991 with the medium-length film La Vie des morts, followed by La Sentinelle, which earned many prizes and launched Emmanuel Salinger into the Olympus of the most sought-after French actors. He obtained broader recognition in 2004 with Kings and queen, always with Mathieu Amalric, his alter ego.
The showcase will be inaugurated on Friday 9 February at 8.30 p.m. at the Cinema Massimo on Screen Three by the screening of his film Les Fantomes d'Ismael (France, 2017). The screening will be followed by a meeting with Arnaud Desplechin and Alba Rohrwacher. Admission 6.00/4.00/3.00 euro.
Screenings calendar
Fri 9, at 8.30 p.m./Sat 24, at 6.30 p.m.
Les Fantomes d'Ismael
(France 2017, 135’, DCP, col., o.v. it. s/t)
Ismaël Vuillard, a frantic writer, writes at night so as to repel his nightmares. Romantically linked to Sylvia, an astrophysicist with her head among the stars, he lost Carlotta, his young spouse, swallowed up twenty years before into nothingness. Since then, he has been looking after Henri Bloom, a film writer, a mentor and the inconsolable father of Carlotta, who returns one summer day from the nether world.
Sat 10, at 4.00 p.m./Wed 14, at 6.30 p.m.
La Sentinelle
(France 1992, 139’, 35mm, col., o.v. it. s/t)
Mathias, the son of a diplomat posted in Germany, returns to Paris following his father’s death to study forensic medicine. After being stopped at the frontier by the police, he finds the head of a corpse in his suitcase the next day. The filmmaker’s first fiction-length film, nominated for the César prize as best first film and original screenplay.
Sat 10, at 6.30 p.m./Wed 14, at 4.00 p.m.
Esther Kahn
(France/Great Britain 2000, 142, 35mm, col., o.v. it. s/t)
Esther is a Jewish girl whom her parents wish to lead towards the business world. However, she decides to leave her family to become an actress. She studies acting, gradually becoming the "protegée" of Nathan, a theatre veteran who aids her in her important career choices.
Sat 10, at 9.00 p.m./Tue 13, at 4.00 p.m.
Comment je me suis disputé... (ma vie sexuelle)
(France 1996, 178’, 35mm, col., o.v. it. s/t)
Paul Dedalus, aged 29, an assistant in Nanterre, teaches but has never sat the exams which would have made him a real professor. He lives with his cousin, who has been engaged for ten years to the same girl, Esther, whom he does not agree with. However, Paul has been in a relationship for two years with Sylvia, his best friend’s fiancée.
Sun 11, at 3.45 p.m./Wed 21, at 4.00 p.m.
Kings & queen (Rois et Reine)
(France 2004, 150’, 35mm, col., o.v. it. s/t)
Structured as a theatre play in two acts and an epilogue, the film features two characters, the protagonists of parallel, apparently independent stories. Nora, a thirty-five year-old art gallerist, lives with her ill father and her son Elias, and Ismael, a crazy viola player, shut up in a psychiatric hospital due to his alleged suicide attempts.
Sun 11, at 6.30 p.m./Sat 24, at 4.00 p.m.
A Christmas Carol (Un Conte de Noël)
(France 2008, 143’, 35mm, col., o.v. it. s/t)
Abel and Junon had two kids, Joseph and Elizabeth. Stricken by a rare genetic illness, Joseph died aged only seven. In the meantime, though, his parents gave birth to a third child hoping to save the first one. Many years later, the Vuillard family is falling apart and quarrelsome, but Junon’s illness leads to a Christmas reunion in Roubaix’s home.
Sun 11, at 9.00 p.m./Wed 21, at 8.00 p.m.
La Vie des morts
(France 1991, 54’, 35mm, col., o.v. it. s/t)
Arnaud Deplechin’s medium-length film is a choral film played by many of those actors who would follow him during his career. The film in centred upon the news of a young man’s attempted suicide, the motivation triggering all the youth’s relatives meeting in an apartment.
Sat 17, at 8.30 p.m./Sun 25, at 5.45 p.m.
My golden days (Trois souvenirs de ma jeunesse)
(France 2014, 120’, DCP, col., o.v. it. s/t)
Following a stay in Tajikistan, French anthropologist Paul Dédalus is stopped by frontier police and interrogated by a secret services official, to whom he must explain the existence of a perfect namesake. Paul searches within his memories and goes back to his youth with his brothers and his inconsolable widowed father, and his meeting with Esther, the first, heartrending love.
Sun 18, at 4.00 p.m./Sun 25, at 8.00 p.m.
Léo en jouant 'Dans la compagnie des hommes'
(France 2003, 118’, 35mm, col., o.v. it. s/t)
A human comedy set in the sordid environment of high finance. Drawn from Edward Bondìs theatre play, it was made in two different versions: one for television and the other for cinema.
Sun 18, at 6.30 p.m./Wed 21, at 6.45 p.m.
L'Aimée
(France 2007, 70’, 35mm, col., o.v. it. s/t)
An inquiry about the filmmaker’s paternal grandmother starting from his father’s testimonial. The film is an appealing portrait of this woman, based on the letters she sent to the family during her stay in a sanatorium.
Sun 18, at 8.00 p.m./Tue 27, at 4.00 p.m.
Jimmy P.
(France 2013, 116’, 35mm, col., o.v. it. s/t)
Browning, Montana, 1948. Jimmy Picard is a native American who lives and works at his sister’s ranch. A Second World War veteran, Jimmy suffers from inexplicable ailments: his eyesight fades, his heart accelerates, his breath falls short. Persuaded they cannot intervene on the patient, the doctors hand him over to Georges Devereux, a Hungarian anthropologist and psychoanalyst who is studying the psychological dimension of cultures differing from the Western one.