The Great Desplechin
Now Playing: Arnaud Desplechin retro, plus one much-needed rimshot
Well Wexner buds, you've done it again. You've booked a retro for a filmmaker with whom I was previously semi-familiar and made me a believer. Good job. Starting with his latest, the masterpiece KINGS AND QUEEN (click HERE for my thoughts), was a good call- after checking it out, I was signed on for the duration. I didn't LOVE the rest quite as much as KINGS AND QUEEN, but that's like faulting everyone else in the NBA circa 1990 for not being Michael Jordan- there's no shame in being merely awesome. And I'd say that pretty much anything Desplechin does qualifies as awesome.

From his first film, the just-short-of-an-hour LA VIE DES MORTS (1991), Desplechin had a keen eye for messy intrapersonal dynamics and a fascination with death and the darker aspects of the soul. In this film, an extended family comes together to await the death of an unseen cousin, who has recently shot himself. In the course of the film, we discover that the family has a long history of tragedy, and as the family members interact and try to take their minds off the tragedy at hand, a pall hangs over the proceedings. Desplechin's style isn't quite fully-formed in LA VIE DES MORTS, but his sensibility is, and the jolting moments that would distinguish his later work are here as well, notably an early scene that introduces Marianne Denicourt's character.

LA SENTINELLE (1992) is Desplechin's first feature-length film, a low-key post-Cold War thriller involving a French pathology student who finds a disembodied head in his luggage upon moving from Germany. Giving a new meaning to the phrase "morbid curiosity," our protagonist (played by Emmanuel Salinger) neglects to turn the head into the authorities, instead examining it covertly, after-hours in the lab where he's interning. The film is set amidst the less-glamorous-than-expected world of the French intelligence community (the hero's roommate and many of his friends work as agents), but the genre aspects of the film are less interesting than the approach it takes to its lead character, an early prototype for the somewhat socially-dysfunctional characters of his subsequent films.

When I say that MY SEX LIFE... OR HOW I GOT INTO AN ARGUMENT (1996) made me highly uncomfortable in spots, rest assured that I mean this in a completely positive way. Paul (Matthieu Amalric) is going through a transitional period in his life much the way I currently am- in his late 20s, he's in much the same spot he was years ago, watching his friends move forward with their lives while he mostly treads water. I was even taken aback by his relationship with Valerie (Jeanne Balibar), a brash and difficult woman who reminded me of an ex-girlfriend of mine, at least personality-wise. To be completely honest, if I was to properly review this film (aside from the identification factor) I'd need to see it again. All I can say is that I reacted very strongly to the film in a way that I rarely do anymore. And that I came out of the film wanting to cuddle with Emmanuelle Devos' character.

The only Desplechin film I had seen prior to the retrospective was ESTHER KAHN (2000), his English-language debut, showing here in its longer European cut. In my original review I wrote that it contains "some interesting insights into acting, but I wasn't quite feeling it... part of the problem is the inert title character." Hey 2002 me bud, that's the point of the movie. Esther has made herself unknowable to those around her, and Desplechin and his lead actress Summer Phoenix purposely extend this to the audience- early scenes involving her poor Jewish family would normally provide psychological insight into the character, but such reductiveness feels out of place here. Does Esther act to escape herself, or to provide an outlet for emotions and behaviors she otherwise bottles up? The film isn't telling, and it's this very elusiveness that makes it magical.

Finally, PLAYING "IN THE COMPANY OF MEN" (2003) is a fascinating, though not-altogether-successful adaptation of an Edward Bond play, with Ophelia from HAMLET thrown in for good measure. What Waz said, pretty much. As the troubled servant Jonas, Bakary Sangare is a fascinating presence.

So when is Desplechin's next film coming out already?

Ratings-
MY SEX LIFE and ESTHER KAHN: ***1/2.
LA SENTINELLE and LA VIE DES MORTS: ***.
PLAYING "IN THE COMPANY OF MEN": **1/2.