A brilliant new French film, “Kings and Queen,” invites discussion and debate. But like a Hollywood summer blockbuster, it also provides a roller-coaster ride. There’s almost no way of predicting where this movie is going next or how it’ll get there.
This adventurousness comes courtesy writer-director Arnaud Desplechin, whose “How I Got Into an Argument … (My Sex Life)” was one of the best European films of the 1990s. For 21/2 hours, Desplechin keeps us guessing about the parallel lives of two unusual people.
First we meet Nora (Emmanuelle Devos, of “Read My Lips”), a chic and intelligent art gallery owner, who enters the film with the lilt of “Moon River” on the soundtrack. She goes to visit her father (Maurice Garrel), who is seriously ill. She’s also got a 10-year-old son to look after, and an impending marriage.
But is Nora the calm, put-together princess she initially appears to be? Especially late in the movie, our view of her changes dramatically.
Running alongside Nora’s story is the slapstick experience of Ismael (Mathieu Amalric). A violinist with as much nervous energy as a caffeinated monkey, Ismael has been unwillingly institutionalized at a psychiatric clinic. He has droll conversations with a psychoanalyst (Catherine Deneuve) and an affair with another patient (Magali Woch), but he spends a lot of time scheming about how to get out.
We’re not sure of the connection between Nora and Ismael until at least halfway through the picture. Desplechin keeps whipping us around from one to the other, and the shifts in tone are great: Nora’s life contains scenes that could come straight from an anguished Ingmar Bergman movie, while Ismael is busy cracking wise and taking “hip-hop dance therapy” in goofy classes.
“Kings and Queen” is observant of people, and observant of the way we watch movies with certain expectations. Desplechin has said that he believes ordinary people are the kings and queens of their own lives, yet so many have the impression our lives are boring or banal. Perhaps this film tries to wake us up to the alternative.
Similarly, why should movies be ordinary? If you like films that take off on adventures of their own, “Kings and Queen” will look decidedly extraordinary.
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