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 Innocent (L'innocent)

Actor/director Louis Garrel

Garrel with Roschdy Zem and Jean-Claude Pautot

Jean-Claude Pautot

Noémie Merlant and Louis Garrel

THE INNOCENT (L'innocent)          B                                                                                     France  (99 mi)  2022  ‘Scope  d: Louis Garrel

An offbeat comedy caper that is more of a character study, while also veering into freewheeling family dysfunction and a heist drama, adapting the director’s own screenplay of mixed genres, co-written by French crime novelist Tanguy Viel and screenwriter Naïla Guiguet, the first without the helping hand of iconic French novelist/screenwriter Jean-Claude Carriére, a longtime collaborator with Luis Buñuel, where all four of Garrel’s films feature him playing an alter-ego character named Abel, a somewhat bumbling Antoine Doinel figure who offers an existential window into contemporary times, though there is no apparent link between films.  The absurd, outlandish nature borders on farce, while it also plays into a crime thriller genre, with the director apparently having fun at his own expense, playing an overly morose character who rarely smiles and is a pain in the ass most of the time, allowing the other characters to shine.  Placing himself as the weakest link in a superb cast that simply runs circles around him talent wise is an interesting choice, and takes guts to do that, but it leaves the center of the picture somewhat deflated by the blind, short-sidedness of Abel (Louis Garrel), who’s a bit of a jerk, with the audience quickly losing patience with him, exhibiting little sympathy for just how obnoxious he really is.  The other surprise is the use of such cheesy, synthesized music, Gianna Nannini - I maschi (1988) HD 0815007 - YouTube (5:57) or Craig Armstrong: Let's go out tonight YouTube (6:01), a throwback to films of the 70’s and 80’s, with the inclusion of fades to black, split screen, and iris shots, yet the generic sound lacks any real inspiration, feeling like a lost opportunity.  So there’s a lot not to like in this film.  On the other hand, the supporting cast is utterly superb, opening with a scene of an imposing middle-aged man delivering an intense monologue about death while loading a gun, setting a disturbing tone, yet when an audience bursts out into applause, enthusiastically lauding the performance, we’re in for a surprise, as it features Michel (Roschdy Zem) as an incarcerated inmate, while the prison drama instructor, Sylvie (Anouk Grinberg), is wildly passionate about his performance, where we sense a deeper connection between the two.  Later we see the two of them happily getting married inside the prison, where everyone’s in a festive mood, even the guards, except a glum Abel, a celebration abruptly cut short due to visiting hours.  This is a tribute to Garrel’s mother Brigitte Sy, who spent twenty years working in prison theater workshops, and did marry one of her students in prison, perhaps best known for her longstanding collaboration with the filmmaker’s father, Philippe Garrel, an uncompromising arthouse director who frequently made stylishly melancholic films starring his son, like REGULAR LOVERS (2005), A Burning Hot Summer (Un été brûlant) (2011), and Jealousy (La Jalousie) (2013).

While the film remains ambiguous about who or what the title refers to, where it may simply be the spirit of the film, Abel’s job is giving tours to children at the aquarium, where his free-spirited work associate is Clémence (Noémie Merlant), who is the real surprise in this picture, as it’s a side of her we haven’t seen before.  Appearing more recently in Céline Sciamma’s 2019 Top Ten List #2 Portrait of a Lady On Fire (Portrait de la jeune fille en feu), a film currently listed at No. 30 in BFI Sight and Sound’s poll for The Greatest Films of All Time, Jacques Audiard’s 2021 #6 Film of the Year Paris, 13th District (Les Olympiades, Paris 13e), and Todd Field’s 2022 Top Ten List #2 Tàr, Merlant has been a rising star in arthouse films, winning the César for Best Supporting Actress in this film, which allows her to extend her range into absurdist comedy, blending high drama into comic farce, adding plenty of personality missing in Garrel’s character, actually becoming the driving force of the picture from behind the scenes.  The central relationship between Sylvie and Michel is initially adorable, as Sylvie is totally smitten, head over heels in love, where the world literally revolves around her man, who just happens to be serving a five-year stretch for grand larceny, offered a second chance of love late in life, as he has resurrected all her hopes and dreams that she’d given up on.  Abel, on the other hand, is a constantly brooding sad sack draining all the life force out of everyone, as he’s suspicious of his mother’s new lover, thinking he’s just another in a long series of his mother’s failed relationships with convicts, while suffering from his own trust issues.  He’s already despondent due to his role in the death of his wife, as she died in a car accident while he was driving, something that has haunted him for years, but Clémence, his wife’s best friend, routinely has to remind him how ridiculously happy his mother is.  Why would anyone crush her dreams?  Nonetheless, the film turns on a dime into a crime caper, with Abel following the recently released Michel like a bungling private eye, becoming obvious wherever he goes, where his amateurishness is overshadowed with just how pathetic his protective instincts are, sensing Michel is lying about getting help from “a friend” in starting a new life, as he and his wife plan to open up a flower boutique together.  It’s a romantic turn of events going from a master thief to a flower peddler, and it’s more than Abel can bear, especially after finding a gun and seeing Michel still running with his old crowd, so he eavesdrops on their clandestine meetings taking place, which Michel lies about, claiming he’s working at a furniture store.  The lies are fast and furious, with Clémence wholeheartedly jumping into help mode, appealing to Abel not to tell his mother, thinking perhaps their own intervention might help set things straight.  Predictably, chaos ensues.

Shot in Lyon, the city of the Lumière brothers and Bertrand Tavernier, a fundamental reference point for French cinephilia, where the French are responsible for some of the best heist scenarios of all time, from Jules Dassin’s RIFIFI (1955), Claude Sautet’s Classe Tous Risques (The Big Risk) (1960), to Jean-Pierre Melville’s BOB LE FLAMBEUR (1956) and LE CIRCLE ROUGE (1970).  Giving thanks to French film director Jacques Audiard, something of a specialist in prison and crime dramas, also getting help from actor Jean-Claude Pautot, a former figure in organized crime who spent decades in jail as a habitual thief and bank robber, thought to be a shining example of rehabilitation gone right, cast as Michel’s crime partner in the film, even appearing on the red carpet in Cannes, but he was rearrested in Spain on drug trafficking charges at the end of 2022 and is currently back in prison.  The film goes to great lengths to expose the lies people will tell, as Abel and Clémence get roped into Michel’s hare-brained scheme, with Clémence thinking this will help Abel break out of his doldrums by actually taking part in Michel’s planned heist, which, of course, is foolproof.  Having heard that before, this is a familiar path straight into the heart of trouble, but taking a novel turn, Michel puts the two of them through relentless rehearsals, not in what to do, but in how to do it, as they must be authentically convincing in creating a distraction, giving the real criminals more time to pull off the theft.  A clever variation on fact and fiction, a bystander must be convinced of their emotional sincerity play-acting a lover’s quarrel in order to be reeled in.  Admittedly, this clever twist is unique and highly original, with Merlant pulling off a master class of diversionary maneuvers in a magnificent sequence that quickly turns sour, where her performance is nothing less than riveting.  What’s supposed to be just for fun seems all too real, as the actors are actually drawn into their own lurid performances, uncertain whether they’re telling the truth or playing a part, taking a delightful detour into romantic sparks and full-blown drama.  The film goes a little off the rails, with screwball comedy turning into a madcap heist gone wrong, becoming more exaggerated by the minute, yet as weird and wacky as it gets, the closer the two would-be actors become in their own developing partnership.  This pack of lies seem to have drawn them together, yet it completely derails the existing romance of Michel and Sylvie, as she refuses to be deceived.  There are memorable moments where crime and romance intersect, joyfully paying homage to Godard’s Breathless (À Bout de Souffle) (1959) and the French New Wave, with Garrel actually playing Godard in Michel Hazanavicius’ film GODARD MON AMOUR (2017), while this is partly inspired by events in the director’s own life, becoming a witty and beautifully constructed oddball mix of family, comedy, romance, suspense, and action in this quintessentially French film that aims to please, generating an enthusiastic response when it premiered out of competition at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, while also receiving a César for Best Original Screenplay.  The characters are memorable, taking us places we never expected.  An eminently playful film with commercial aspirations, it probably plays better in a theater full of delighted patrons, but this is more amusingly offbeat than good.