Kings And Queen

Colour, 35 mm
France, 2004, 150 min
Section: Horizons
Oficiální stránky: www.wildbunch.biz

Synopsis

Two independent storylines focus on a man and a woman who were once husband and wife. In the first, Parisian Nora is going through a tough period in her life. After divorcing, she gets involved in another relationship, and at the same time must come to terms with her writer father’s cancer and his ultimate death; the fact that he was her son Elias’s caretaker complicates things further. The other plotline involves Nora’s ex-husband Ismaël, who is committed to an asylum by mistake. He is thereby thrown into complicated situations that change his life. Nora, shaken by the death of a loved one, returns to the dramas of her past (the suicide of her first husband, Elias’s dad, her relationship with her son and with her elderly father, her lonely mother). She decides to seek out Ismaël and ask him to adopt Elias. Reminiscent of an Eric Rohmer movie in its emphasis on verbal confrontation, the film contemplates the meaning of life and the complicated nature of human relationships.

About the director

Arnaud Desplechin (b. 1960, Roubaix) graduated from Paris’s IDHEC film school where he made two shorts. After graduating, he co-wrote the screenplays or was cameraman for the documentaries of other directors (Éric Barbier, Patrick Grandperret and Éric Rochant). His early independent dramatic work includes his debut La vie des morts (1990) and the spy thriller The Sentinel (La sentinelle, 1991). He acted in Serge Moati’s Poorly Extinguished Fires (Des feux mal éteints, 1993). His tale of relationship complications, My Sex Life...or How I Got into an Argument (Comment je me suis disputé... (ma vie sexuelle), 1996), unfolds among university intellectuals afflicted with existential angst. Set in London, Esther Kahn (2000) takes a look at the stage career of a late 19th century Jewish actress; it was lauded by French critics as the film of the year. Prior to Kings and Queen, he made Playing ‘In the Company of Men’ (En jouant ´Dans la compagnie des hommes’, 2004).