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TWO PIANOS by Arnaud Desplechin
Arnaud Desplechin has never been one for half measures, and Two Pianos —his latest act of cinematic exuberance—plays out like a fugue written in a feverish frenzy. The film begins with a crash, quite literally: a man faints at the sight of his former lover, hitting his head against an elevator door as she flees, like a fugitive pursued by her own emotions. From there, Desplechin doesn't so much build as ricochet, orchestrating a melodrama so intensely devoted to its excesses that one can only admire its sheer endurance. It's a film that staggers, waltzes, collapses, and rises again in the same movement—an erratic concerto in two keys: the sublime and the absurd.
François Civil , in the role of the prodigious pianist Mathias , carries the film with a controlled volatility that reflects his character's fractured relationship to art and affection. Returning from a self-imposed exile in Tokyo to Lyon—a city depicted here as both his birthplace and a psychological trap— Mathias confronts a gallery of ghosts: his imperious mentor, Elena , embodied by Charlotte Rampling with the stature of a marble statue and the glimmer of buried tenderness; his mother, who constantly begs him to flee mediocrity; and Claude , a love too fragile to survive, yet too intense to be forgotten. The film's title refers, of course, to the instrument they share, but also to the impossible duality of past and present, master and student, man and woman, reason and desire.
Rampling's Elena is the film's focal point: each of her words is a command, each of her silences an accusation. Desplechin films her with almost religious reverence—low-angle shots that elevate her to the status of a deity, light that polishes her features like a tribute. Yet, when she gives in, when her voice trembles or her smile betrays fatigue, the camera finally dares to meet her at eye level. In these rare moments of tenderness, Two Pianos seems almost to abandon its theatrical pretense. We glimpse the film it could have been: an austere meditation on transmission, mortality, and the perilous intimacy of artistic creation. But Desplechin , the eternal dramatist, cannot resist revving the tempo to a feverish intensity.
The screenplay, co-written with Kamen Velkovsky , constantly flirts with implausibility. Deaths arrive at conveniently timed moments, coincidences pile up like dominoes, and Lyon seems inhabited by a dozen characters trapped in their mutual torments. Yet, Desplechin 's cinema has always thrived on the porous border between sincerity and parody; here, the chaos seems both self-aware and profoundly sincere. One minute, you think you're watching Scenes from a Marriage ; the next, a French soap opera . Mathias , played by Civil , may be over the top, and Claude is sketched as a figure of erotic instability, but both perform with such conviction that you suspend your disbelief—or at least defer your judgment until the next emotional outburst.
Paul Guilhaume 's photography , lush with ochre tones and impulsive camera movements, infuses the film with its pulse, while Grégoire Hetzel 's music —oscillating between Chopin and tempestuous original themes—acts as both ballast and provocation. Together, they maintain the illusion that this excessive narrative is in fact a piece of chamber music, whose dissonances are deliberate and crescendos deserved.
With its strange, muted conclusion, Two Pianos has run its course, and we with it, but it leaves behind a lingering fascination. Desplechin , his eternal rival, has composed a new symphony of human folly: excessive, erratic, but undeniably alive. Like Mathias , he can't help but play too many notes—and all the better for it.
Starring François Civil, Nadia Tereszkiewicz, and Charlotte Rampling • New York Premiere March 6 at Rendez-Vous With French Cinema at Film at Lincoln Center • Opening In Theaters May 1
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