The eternal Arno Desplechin’s latest Cannes entry in the official selection showed he is re-examining his favorite subjects, including literature, anthropology, Judaism and the cathartic effects of acting. It enriches the layered narrative and takes it down unexpected alleys, but the author’s main concern is to explore adult children in family crisis: the emotional landscape of his two most powerful and famous films. Kings and queens s christmas story. Like this last drama, sister and brother It includes a family called the Vuiard, who suffered the death of a 6-year-old boy, has a patriarch named Abel, and has a long-standing affair of sibling animosity. But in this repetition of Rube’s vulgarities, the clan is neither extensive nor well equipped, putting them perhaps more firmly to the ground, even if one of them, with hallucinatory enthusiasm or mere sorcery, opposes gravity. .
As its title suggests, this feature film focuses on a particular family relationship: the relationship of two 50-year-old brothers whose animosity is so strange it is sometimes turned into comic books. Marion Cotillard and Melville Pupa starred in Helmer’s second major work (he also had a small role in My sex life…or how I got into an argument), are at the forefront of their game while Alice and Louis, longtime aliens, find subtle and elegant notes in all their brutal self-dramatization and heartbreak.
sister and brother
Knockout feeling between brothers.
Desplechin is a diligent observer of human comedy and one who creates judgment-free zones where he can see and embrace even the most intolerable self-absorption. Of course this applies sister and brother, in which its two central characters and several auxiliary characters stand out, involved in the intensity. In addition to interpersonal dynamics, there is something broader here too: something, to use a terrible M-word, metaphorical. The film shows the duel that has become its own self-sufficient engine, without logic or reason. You look at characters who find it easier to bend conflict than to adhere to diplomacy, and circumstances where collateral damage is, first and foremost, impossible not to think about the geopolitical turmoil of the world we live in.
Exactly what the worm turned out to be to Alice and her younger brother is a mystery that is only partially resolved at the end of the film. But the damage done by their unwavering hostility is obvious from the start. The prologue, at once laconic and aggravated by pain, establishes the depth of the rupture. From there, the story of Desplechin and his frequent writing partner, Julie Peir, goes back five years, to a tense and gruesome series of accidents on a rural road that kills a young girl and kills Abel (Joel Kudenek), seven years old. old. and Marie-Louise (). Nicolette Picheral) in the intensive care unit, her prognosis is poor.
They were heading to the Théâtre du Nord in Lille for the opening night of Alice’s Daughter. Dead, an adaptation of Joyce’s masterpiece about family, friends, love and the passage of time, and it’s no accident that Christmas is a fairy tale. Before realizing her parents’ plight, Alice thought about taking the stage a second time, after reading a new book of poetry by her brother Louise to her face. He considers writing such a personal insult that he and his wife, playwright Andre Borkman (Francis Leplay), once sued him for defamation.
Meanwhile, Louise is escorted from a rustic home where she and her husband, Faunia (Golshifte Farahan), are retiring after their son’s death. This is such a remote place that his good friend Zvi (Patrick Timsit, in Mensch mode and perfectly) has to hire a horse to get close to them.
The brothers have returned to their hometown and tend to avoid each other, the comings and goings having to be choreographed with some crude precision, in the hospital and in the apartment of younger brother Fidel (Benjamin Sixu) and his wife, Simon (Alexander Pavlov). ). ). As Zvi tells Louis, when he arrives at the airport, he expects an image of Alice on a huge billboard in his theater: “You’re painted on the corner, man.” A sibling given to separation will largely catch up with him, but a few unforeseen, figurative and direct, break the story with a touch of melodrama in one case and a spectacular anticlimax in the other.
With each other and their parents approaching imminent death, Louis and Alice become increasingly painless and self-healing, each in their own way. One of his first requests in Ruby is for the illegal purchase of drugs; Then he dictates to the psychiatrist the medications he thinks he needs. Her favorite drink for a morning interview with the journalist (Jonathan Mallard) is a glass of gin, but both the drinking and the conversation are soon cut short when the subject of Louise is brought up. Explaining her refusal to acknowledge her brother’s existence, Alice says that he “has always been on the side of the wounded”. In doing so, he confirms Lewis’ complaint about his “alarming taste for purity”, as purity was one of his favorite animals, and the climate of censorship he cites as the reason for his interruption of teaching.
Alice’s teenage son Joseph (Max Baisset of Malgaive) is a gentle spirit with an angelic atmosphere who seems to belong more to the family than specifically Alice and André in particular. Alice’s main emotional involvement lately, aside from her dislike of Louise, is with an unknown Lucia (Cosmina Stratan), a fan who approaches her one night outside the theater and declares her deep admiration. A penniless Romanian immigrant (how did she buy a theater ticket?), Lucía defends her biography but wants to hear Alicia, as the professional actress greets a private audience. “One day,” he recalls, acknowledging his feelings for Louise, “hatred completely washed over me.”
Desplechin has long been working with Irina Lubchansky (director of photography on all her films since 2014 except last year). Lie) and editor Lawrence Brio, merges and unravels the threads of the story. The film moves quickly between the two main characters, but it takes time to lighten up in doing so, forcing them to control, disarm, and act. Looking at Joseph, Louise remembers her dead son, but that doesn’t stop her from unraveling her nephew in public. Her fury is matched by one from Alice, who turns to a kind and helpful pharmacist (Salif Cisse) who remembers an outburst similar to Juliana Moore’s in St. Louis. Magnolia.
If they act like children, it’s still amazing to hear all their pleas to Abel as he’s lying in a hospital bed with his comatose wife to settle his war for them. The story goes further and further, full of surprising leaps into fantasy and the fantasy-free worship that Timsit and Louis attend (the billiards are Catholic, but seeing Louis Abel utter the Yiddish word “blessed”, and there’s a strong vaura) . With late starts, especially compared to a strong first half, things happen more slowly. But there is no predictable time, and Cotillard (who last worked with Desplechin ghosts of ismael) and Poupaud (who played a lot more like Vuillard christmas story) Establish your functions with measured security.
As focused as the central duo is, the narrative also offers moments of recovery for the other characters, along with Timsit and Farahan, as a woman who prides herself on being the “outcast wife” makes the most vivid impression. . . Kudenek is also memorable, who dresses the screen, mainly on a bed, in a forced portrait of a man who has decided to remain involved for the rest of his life as much as he can, and who does not give an account of his role in the maintenance of A long time. -dramatic term. between her two children. Siksou’s Fidèle is a less distinguished figure defined by his neutrality between warring nations. This is a trait that can be interpreted as caring and compassion. But it also means that he feeds the insane status quo, accepting and not questioning his family’s separation.
Alice and Louise will have to sort things out, more or less, in an environment so discreet it’s disturbing. Narratively unsatisfying in narrative terms, it’s followed by a small pile of incidents, all of which can be a desperate way to highlight how simple and common the solution is and how addicted we’ve become to the drama of catastrophe.
Where Louis and Alice end up, revealed in elegantly written and beautifully executed scenes, is the most common aspect. sister and brother, Solve this masterfully narrated tale in an exceedingly orderly fashion. Once again, this might seem like a hard-earned peace for these two. We know where they started and we can imagine the courage it took to break free. Zvi is most appreciated when traveling on horseback to tell his dear friend the bad news: “I’m scared,” he says, “but I’m leaving.”
Source: Hollywood Reporter
Emily Jhon is a product and service reviewer at Gossipify, known for her honest evaluations and thorough analysis. With a background in marketing and consumer research, she offers valuable insights to readers. She has been writing for Gossipify for several years and has a degree in Marketing and Consumer Research from the University of Oxford.
