Kings and Queen
Written by Roger Bohbot and Arnaud Desplechin
Directed by Arnaud Desplechin
Wellsping Media
2005
Rating:


The line that melodrama walks is a thin one. Go too far to one side and the material becomes, at best, the camp of "Mommy Dearest." Go too far to the other and the material becomes little more than a series of dull, overwrought experiences. Director Arnaud Desplechin ("Esther Kahn") isn't quite Johnny Cash, or more appropriately Douglas Sirk, enough to walk the line, but he comes frustratingly close to crafting a melodramatic masterpiece. Told in two parts and an epilogue, Desplechin's "Kings and Queen" follows the calamities that befall Nora (Emmanuelle Devos) and Ismaël (Mathieu Almaric), one of which is tragic, the other a Kafka-esque farce. Nora's about to marry her third husband after her first died in an accident (or did he?) and the second didn't think that love means never having to ask. Her life is turned upside down when her writer father (Maurice Garrel) begins to die of cancer. As Nora spends time with him during his last days, she's forced to confront the ghosts of her pat. Meanwhile violinist Ismaël is taken forcibly to an asylum and his apartment is seized by the IRS as collateral against the 700,000 he owes in back taxes. Nora is initially easier to forgive for her sins, her beauty masking her passive aggressive tendencies until a hateful letter reveals Nora's true nature. Ismaël, one of moviedom's traditionally harmless crazies, actively seeks redemption from his self-absorption.

Desplechin's daring is one of the film's most endearing aspects, but "Kings and Queen" falters because Desplechin takes such a kitchen sink approach to his material without any substantive purpose. Employing techniques from the New Wave — Godard's jump cuts, Truffaut's "four ideas every scene" maxim and Jacques Rivette's elegiac pacing — and mythological symbols, Desplechin never grounds his movie with a coherent meaning beyond his histrionics to make it truly resonate.

Posted Sunday, July 3, 2005

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