Often,
usually during finals week, or when my advisor asks me for the hundredth time
if I’m “sure I don’t want to change my major to something with more job
security”, I think about leaving. I think
about just hopping on a Greyhound and riding it to the West Coast, up into the
Rockies and starting it all over. I
wouldn’t tell anyone; I’d make a new name, or a new life. I’d want to leave all that I have
behind. So in this way, I understand the
motivation and the premise of Les
fantômes d'Ismaël. Unfortunately, even
as an aspiring film director, the rest of Arnaud Desplechin’s potentially
autobiographical exploration of his own psyche is too scrambled and absurd to
be comprehended by most people in touch with reality.
The basic
synopsis of Ismael’s Ghosts seems
simple. Compelling, even. Ismael Vuillard (Mathieu Amalric) is a film
director struggling to complete his latest movie, when suddenly his wife
Carlotta (Marion Cotillard) reappears after 21 years of absence when she
boarded a train to nowhere with no note left behind. Her reappearance reveals the double life that
she’d led while abroad, and she begins to create tension between Ismael and his
current lover Sylvia (Charlotte Gainsbourg).
Based on this synopsis,
Ismael’s Ghosts sounds like a deeply
rich thriller and family drama, built upon betrayal and desire, hitting all the
staples of French romantic cinema.
However, what is not apparent, or necessarily relevant, to this summary,
is the inclusion of Ismael’s own film.
The film within the film, so to speak.
This introduces the character of Ivan Dedalus (Louis Garrel), a daring international
French spy that must outwit Russian intelligence in order to protect his
country and wife. Scenes of this film
are interspersed throughout the primary narrative, and for some periodic
moments, the excitement is heightened beyond the intense, tear-heavy drama.
What doesn’t
work about this premise, however, is that the two stories are ultimately disconnected. Even when the primary narrative about Ismael
provides the perfect cue for a cutaway to the second story, the scenes don’t
line up. There is nothing parallel about
them. It could be stated that, as Ismael’s
insanity grows, so does the intensity of his film in violence and action, but
that’s reaching for straws.
Instead of complimenting the primary
narrative, the second film only serves to distract from it and confuses the
overall film. While both films are shot
with precise detail and edited cleanly into each other, the images that they
display make no sense in tandem. Notice,
again, how I refer to them as two films.
Essentially, that is what they are, and Desplechin might have benefited
more from less.
I will say, though, that Ismael’s Ghosts still manages to hit strong points that make it a worthwhile
film. Technically, the film is
sophisticated and makes many a reference to the French New Wave, as a good Cannes
film should. There is a sequence where
Ismael is taking a train, akin to his lost wife, while a montage of his
thoughts plays out in the train window.
Similarly, the climax of the film – a synthesis of the two films that,
while still not comparable, is entertaining and hilarious – moves seamlessly
between the two narratives in the confusion that it’s meant to convey. Amalric manages to land almost every joke and
awkward moment on the mark, while the framing itself only heightens the comedy,
whether intentional or not.
Another thing that is missing from
this film though, for me, is context. The
character of Ismael Vuillard has been previously played – by Mathieu Amalric –
in a 2004 film by Desplechin. In this
incarnation, he was a musician, also found to be in the woes of love. I have not seen this film, but I am also well
aware of Desplechin’s apparent infatuation with Amalric, given his frequent collaboration. Ismael’s
Ghosts is relatively inaccessible, however, to those that are not familiar
with this large portfolio of dysfunctional auteurism. There are several moments that are
inexplicable within the film itself, and it unsuccessfully attempts to
reference other films in Despelchin’s repertoire, regardless of popularity.
The true star, and possibly the
saving grace, of this film is the wonderful Marion Cotillard. She delivers a performance that is as
desperate as it is beautiful, and breaks the audience’s heart in doing so. No matter how hard the narrative tries to
blame Carlotta for being naïve, selfish, or a multitude of qualities that
attempt to paint her as a melodramatic manic pixie dream girl, she comes across
as sympathetic, born into the life that she felt she needed to leave. As I stated before, her motivation is the one
concrete reason for this film. Through
conversations with her character, we understand that need to escape, to start
life over, and to fit several lives into one.
Even further, she reveals to us the consequences of this thinking, and
how it hurts the relationships that she has.
The message of this film seems to
be simple. There are relationships in our
lives that we do not choose. What Ismael’s Ghosts emphasizes even more is
the permanence of these relationships, and the repercussions that ripple into
our own lives. At the same time, this
message is hidden under a litany of melodrama and misplaced action, dragging it
down to be untangled. It is without
question that this is a movie that one must watch more than once to fully
understand. With the inclusion of a
director’s cut that adds an extra twenty minutes of footage to the story,
however, who will actually be able to watch it until the end?
Les
fantômes d'Ismaël
Director Arnaud
Desplechin
Writers Arnaud
Desplechin, Léa Mysius,
Julie Peyr
Stars Mathieu
Amalric, Marion Cotillard, Charlotte Gainsbourg
Running Time 1h 54min
Genre Drama,
Thriller
