Two Pianos (Deux Pianos)

 

Director Arnaud Desplechin

Desplechin with François Civil

Desplechin with Nadia Tereszkiewicz

Civil and Tereszkiewicz

Charlotte Rampling

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TWO PIANOS (Deux Pianos)           B+                                                                             France  (115 mi)  2025  ‘Scope  d: Arnaud Desplechin

Desplechin developed a reputation for writing some of the most natural dialogue in the movie industry, starting with MY SEX LIFE…OR HOW I GOT INTO AN ARGUMENT (1996), ESTHER KHAN (2000), KINGS & QUEEN (2004), and A CHRISTMAS TALE (2008), using a revolving stable of actors who moved on to impressive careers, while more recently he’s dabbled in smaller projects, 2015 Top Ten Films #7 My Golden Days (Trois souvenirs de ma jeunesse), a romantic and nostalgic take on memory and first love in this coming-of-age prequel to MY SEX LIFE, and Deception (Tromperie) (2021), an adaptation of a Philip Roth novel, where the lead protagonist, a novelist, describes himself as “a talk fetishist!” in one of the many conversations before, during, and after sex.  Desplechin also directed theatrical playwright August Strindberg’s The Father in 2015 and Tony Kushner’s Angels in America in early 2020, both playing at the esteemed Comédie-Française in Paris, where his innate sense of staging is evident here in an unconventional film featuring characters who are thrown into the middle of chaos.  All his films are intellectually challenging, dramatically compelling, and always curious, demonstrating a remarkable consistency in churning out quality films.  This is unlike anything else he’s ever done, particularly the way the story slowly advances, with frequent use of disorienting jump cuts and plenty of unspoken details, literally defying audience expectations with a non-resolution, growing smaller and smaller in scope, yet continually challenging audiences in unorthodox ways, adding to the magic and the mystery. Falling off the map in terms of accessibility, it’s hard to find Desplechin films anymore, even on streaming platforms, where his previous film is still unavailable in the United States, though they were once a staple of international arthouse films.  Known for his wit and literary inspirations, and for producing quality soul-bearing performances from a mix of known and unknown actors, this feels like the kind of film we used to see on a regular basis, but has disappeared from the landscape, so discovering this small gem is like rediscovering a bit of ourselves, a reminder of why we value cinema so much.  The original story and scenario were conceived by Arnaud Desplechin and Kamen Velkovsky, and then developed into a screenplay alongside Ondine Lauriot dit Prévost with collaboration from novelist Anne Berest.  In some ways it recalls Denis Dercourt’s THE PAGE TURNER (2006), a French psychological thriller revolving around a piano audition gone wrong, or the gritty underworld thriller by Jacques Audiard, The Beat That My Heart Skipped (De battre mon coeu... (2005), where a debt-collecting thug develops an interest in playing classical piano, like Zen therapy, also revolving around a piano audition, where in each case the serene calmness of the classical music world stands in stark contrast to the chaotic violence of the central storyline.  The original music is composed by Grégoire Hetzel in his 9th Desplechin film, but also Denis Villeneuve’s Incendies (2010), where the marvelous AMÉLIE-sounding accordion-led song over the end credits is a reminder that we’re watching a French film, even though it’s Italian, Parole di vento composed by Franco Ghigini YouTube (4:30).

In this case Desplechin mixes together two storylines about impossible love, an homage to Leo McCarey’s AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER (1957), the tale of a woman whose fate was sealed when she was very young because she had a child, and another story about a pianist who returns to his home country and catches sight of a child who is his exact double, sounding very much like a German fairy tale steeped in mystery, with the filmmaker returning to some of his favorite themes, psychologically charged homecomings and unexpected reunions.  Once a virtuoso child prodigy at the piano, Mathias (François Civil from Larry Abrahamson’s 2014 Top Ten List #10 Frank) returns to his provincial hometown of Lyon after spending eight years abroad teaching and performing in Japan, summoned by his mentor Eléna (Charlotte Rampling in her best role since 2016 in Andrew Haigh’s 45 Years), a celebrated older pianist who plans to retire and hopes he can perform with her in a concert for two pianos and orchestra in what will be her final performance.  Shooting in a city rarely featured in French films, other than Bertrand Tavernier and Lumière’s first studio, Desplechin showcases some iconic locations in Lyon, including the Parc de la Tête d'or, the two rivers running through the city, the cobblestone streets of Vieux Lyon, the city’s oldest district, and the Maurice Ravel Auditorium.  Arriving straight from the airport to a party in Eléna’s honor, still disheveled and disoriented and underdressed, where he is handed a tie at the door to look more formally appropriate, he mingles with her briefly before making a quick exit, but as he leaves he comes face to face with an arriving woman, Claude (Nadia Tereszkiewicz, impressive in Ozon’s The Crime Is Mine (Mon Crime) (2023), causing her to run right back out the door while Mathias faints on the spot.  More than foreshadowing, this sets the tone for the emotional turmoil that follows, as there’s an element of psychological unease lying beneath the surface for the rest of the film, which explores the source of this tension, as there is obvious emotional baggage that Mathias is carrying, like open scars that he cannot escape, as Claude is married to art gallery owner Pierre (Jérémy Lewin), his childhood best friend and rival in love, and the reason he fled to Japan.  The volatile temperament for such a talented artist comes as a surprise, as musicians are usually expressed by strict rigor and discipline, but this guy is all over the place, an artist in conflict with his own art, invariably too wrapped up in his own self-created problems.  Plunging him into bouts of heavy drinking, Mathias gets stinking drunk afterwards, with his benevolent, all-encompassing, father figure agent Max (Hippolyte Girardot) looking out for him, waiting patiently for him to wake up in the jail’s drunk tank, while Pierre dies suddenly in a car accident, leaving Claude stunned and devastated, left to raise her child Simon (Valentin Picard) alone.  While wandering through a park afterwards, Mathias can’t take his eyes off Simon for some reason, perched at the top of the pyramid on the playground, locking eyes just before he falls from a great height, but survives intact, amazingly, where it’s just a scare, but Mathias can’t help but think this child looks just like him at that age, asking his mother to pull out a family photo to confirm his suspicions.

An alluring mystery where music, memory, and identity merge and threaten to overwhelm the tender psyche of a virtuosic pianist, this homecoming does not go as planned, as Mathias is not that invincible force of nature that serious performing artists tend to be, like the touring performance artist Eléna, who reminds him at the party, “I was built for war,” as she chastises him for not touring constantly and sharing his gift to the world.  Her implacable reserve commands respect, protecting herself like a mighty fortress, but this icy demeanor allows her to go anywhere at any time and play without the use of a score, committing it all to memory, like a force of nature.  Mathias, on the other hand, has tragic weaknesses, where both he and Claude share deeply buried passions and unspoken truths that bond them together, yet they can’t be together, as long ago she chose Pierre, leaving him completely devastated.  This has left him more passive and emotionally vulnerable, as he’s still in love with her, which is evident every moment they spend together, as sparks are in the air, with surprising results, as she welcomes that undivided attention, especially in her grief, but she’s also not ready to commit to him, even as he devours her with his eyes.  Channeling his lust for Claude spills over into a brief affair with Pierre’s younger sister and Claude’s best friend, Judith (Alba Gaïa Bellugi).  The acting in this film is superb, brilliantly filmed in ‘Scope by Paul Guilhaume, who recently filmed two of Jacques Audiard’s most impressive looking films, 2021 #6 Film of the Year Paris, 13th District (Les Olympiades, Paris 13e) in black and white and the colorful musical Emilia Pérez (2024).  His constant handheld camera movements create an unbearable suspense, shooting without dollies, without tracking shots, and without a tripod, always countering the classicism of the story they were telling.  Centered around our biggest regrets, music plays a big role in the film, with selected classical pieces by Bartók, Debussy, Chopin, and Bach, lofty giants that performers can find refuge in the complexities of their music, which is the same thing that happens here, with the music expressing underlying emotional layers that can never be expressed verbally.  Mixing old world and new world characters, the film is a kind of fantasy-melodrama, much of it taking place in interior spaces, where the three main multi-lingual performers, Civil, Tereszkiewicz, and Rampling beautifully portray just how profoundly debilitating their respective emotional worlds can be, like pulling the rug out from underneath them, sending them into a dizzying freefall without a clue where they will land.  These are stories of isolated characters who come together for an all-too brief moment and embrace in order to escape the depths of their solitude, weighed down by grief and sorrow, then inevitably return to it, as this solitude is obviously a protective strength for them.  The film is pure poetry, exploring the underlying layers of emotional worlds that is rare to see, not with this degree of assurance, which feels surprising in this day and age, and altogether missing in modern American films, yet it is the essence of cinema in the best possible sense, as beauty is timeless.  While he may not be spoken in the same breath as Rivette, Rohmer, or even Truffaut, Desplechin is a major force in world cinema.

The Last One for the Road (Le città di pianura)

 

Director Francesco Sossai

Sossai on the set with Sergio Romano

THE LAST ONE FOR THE ROAD (Le città di pianura)                 B                                            Italy  Germany  (100 mi)  2025  d: Francesco Sossai

We’re too old to grow up.                                                                                                               —Doriano (Pierpaolo Capovillo)

Old geezers on parade, a zany road trip featuring the misadventures of two fiftyish small-time Italian crooks, best friends Carlobianci (Sergio Romano) and Doriano (musician and singer-songwriter Pierpaolo Capovillo), who obsessively live for their next drink, stopping at any roadside tavern along the way, bound by their proverbial ritual of always seeking that one final drink, literally spending their lives completely inebriated, where this is their normalized state of mind, kind of like a Charles Bukowski fever dream.  A bizarre, dialogue-heavy character study written by Sossai and Adriano Candiago, it resembles the comic absurdity of Vladimir and Estragon in Waiting for Godot, two colorful characters who are oblivious to the changing times, passing their time in endless existential conversations and philosophical musings, where not much of anything happens.  These unwitting millennials were born during a time of intense economic growth, but entered the workforce during the devastating 2008 Great Recession, the worst downturn since the Great Depression, later facing the Covid pandemic during their prime earning years, and are sometimes called a new “Lost Generation” because these historic economic shocks left them with massive debt, lower wealth accumulation, and delayed major life milestones compared to previous generations, now subsisting on memories, forever recalling their glory days as if it was just yesterday, raising their glass, claiming “it’s still yesterday for us.”  Shot by Massimiliano Kuveiller on Super 16mm and 35mm film stock, with an incredibly raw and crude sounding guitar soundtrack that was composed by local musician Krano, who is seen live onstage at one point, sounding as ragged as anything you could ever imagine.  Premiering at the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes 2025, Francesco Sossai was born in the area depicted in the film, forever changed by globalization, so he understands it intrinsically, making short films at an early age, moving to Rome where he graduated in English and German Literatures before being admitted to the German Television Film Academy in Berlin (DFFB).  Like outtakes from an Aki Kaurismäki hangout movie, with no real story to speak of, portraying a side of Italy that is not often shown, freely exploring the road not taken, this is a raw and seemingly unrehearsed odyssey of aging boozers and ruined romantics, driven to rediscover all their old favorite hangouts to eat and drink, which still linger in their imaginations, yet never seem to live up to their expectations, following their spontaneous journey from bar to bar.

An aimless and meandering film about middle-aged male disillusionment and the time we’ve lost, and the time that has been wasted, literally stumbling from place to place, where the lives of these anti-heroes have been filled with plenty of regrets, as they once had a thriving construction business, building a highway that links Lisbon through Treviso to Budapest, but since 2008 they’ve long since lost their jobs and become black market scam artists, swindlers, and petty thieves, continually coming up with ways to make something out of nothing, yet riding in style, as Carlobianci splurged on a Jaguar S-Type luxury vehicle when they were flush with cash, money that is long gone, yet they continue to cherish those memories as they now face the impending mediocrity of middle age.  In a flash, Carlobianci seems to have unlocked the secret of life, literally beaming with joy, but just as quicky it is instantly forgotten, spending the rest of the film trying to remember as they wander through these massive transformations, both cultural and physical, that the landscape is going through, making it nearly unrecognizable to how we remember it, completely altering our idea of identity.  At one stop along the way in the wee hours of the night, they notice something strange about what they’re drinking, disappointed to discover it is non-alcoholic beer, thinking that doesn’t really count, concocting a plan to pick up their exiled partner in crime Genio at the airport in Venice, returning to Italy after fleeing to Argentina before the 2008 financial crisis, feeling giddy about the idea, driving through the night to get there, LE CITTÀ DI PIANURA by Francesco SOSSAI - Clip 1 YouTube (1:33).  Stopping at a roadside Country & Western bar, our protagonists comment that they may as well be in America as men and women in cowboy hats are doing some line dancing.  A German tourist at the bar mentions that he’s there to see Italy before it’s destroyed, with Carlobianchi uttering, “I think you’re too late.”  Continuing on their trek, the Venetian bar they were pursuing is somehow closed, but opportunity knocks, as they stumble upon a boisterous group of college students loudly celebrating a graduation on the streets, easily joining in the festivities, asking where they can get a drink, and immediately the entire group shifts to a nearby local bar, but before they do, our guys happen to witness a conversation between the shy, reserved, and lovestruck architectural student Giulio (Filippo Scotti, the star of Paolo Sorrentino’s 2021 The Hand of God (È stata la mano di Dio), and the girl of his dreams, Giulia (Giulia Bertasi), claiming he needs to go home as he has a design exam early in the morning, indicating they’ll meet another time, but she declares, “There’s never another time.” 

Seemingly innocuous and harmless, this expression is a key to unlocking the film, with Carlobianci repeating the phrase to him as they drag him to the party.  With that seemingly innocent gesture, the bookish Giulio suddenly becomes the third wheel to our road trip adventure, initially quiet and  standoffish, wondering how he got railroaded into this terrible idea, but he soon forgets his morning appointment and warms to their all-embracing, anything goes style, becoming something of a free for all as they travel across a stretch of land running from Venice to Milan called the Pianura, or the flatlands of Veneto, once the beating heart of the Italian economy, but now fallen on hard times with industry and economic growth abandoning the region, seemingly transformed overnight, as globalization has led to a near-complete uniformity, creating a stifling homogeneity.  Carlobianchi is a man consumed by regrets, feeling as though time has passed him by, haunted by the choices he's made.  Doriano has already come to terms with his past, offering a quiet wisdom that Carlobianchi could only hope for, while the sweetly charming Giulio is just embarking on his own journey of self-discovery, with our heroes continually encouraging him to build up his courage and go after the girl.  Somehow the three of them explore things that matter in their own distinct way, continually wandering off course, finding trivialities and small everyday moments, yet always searching for hidden meaning in their lives.  When they do finally connect with Genio (Andrea Pennacchi), pinning their hopes on cash he buried before the financial crisis, they’re stymied once again, as modernization has constructed a building over the site, leaving them thoroughly demoralized.  Capturing the beauty of the end of an era while mostly drunk or hungover, this is a different kind of movie, recalling Dino Risi’s IL SORPASSO (1962), but less tragic, reviving the Commedia all'italiana style through the Dionysian spirit, filled with unexpected turns and strange realizations, like the sudden shift to Giulio’s point of view on a trip to Treviso for the post-modernist Brion Memorial designed by Carlo Scarpa, with its heavily concrete forms, viewed through the academically informed eyes of Giulio, bonded by their friendship as an emotional anchor, offering a different vision of the future, unfolding in a melancholy road movie that never really leads anywhere, LE CITTÀ DI PIANURA by Francesco SOSSAI - Clip 2 YouTube (1:16).  Through sad and jubilant moments, there is never a sense of the profound, as the journey blends humor with matters of the heart, balancing the light and the heavy in a way that draws the audience deep into the characters’ lives, where it’s not places, or monuments, or things that represent a country, but the people living in it, offering an intimate exploration of human connection, forgiveness, and hope.