"I saw myself, it was me and I was a child". Arnaud Desplechin’s filmmaking talent has always thrived in psychoanalytical and cathartic dimensions which many other auteurs are at pains to avoid for fear of getting burnt or drowning. But the French director romps around in this terrain like a duck in water and his greatest successes (Kings and Queen [+leggi anche:
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His new film, Two Pianos [+leggi anche:
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scheda film], unveiled in the 50th Toronto Film Festival and subsequently competing in the 73rd San Sebastian Film Festival, is no exception to this rule, bursting with guilt, pain, melancholy and sorrow, but the director has once again managed to find a staggeringly beautiful vehicle through which this romantic torrent of raw emotions, thwarted love and artistic tensions can happily flow.

"What were you up to on the other side of the world?" Back in his hometown, Lyon, after spending eight years abroad teaching in Japan, former young soloist prodigy Mathias (a remarkable François Civil) is reconnecting with his mentor, Elena (the charismatic Charlotte Rampling), who calls him up for a four-handed concert. "I like to be alone, like you. You’re going to suffer. I accepted becoming a monster in order to become a pianist. I want you to go back on tour", the international star commands her former protégé before organising a rehearsal with him the following day. Her wishes are shared by Mathias’ entourage, ranging from his friendly agent Max (Hippolyte Girardot) to his admiring and loving mother Anna (Anne Kessler), because no-one really understands why he shut down his career.

The mystery deepens (or becomes clearer, if you like, Arnaud Desplechin revelling in chiaroscuro) that very night when Mathias randomly crosses paths with Claude (Nadia Tereszkiewicz) at the entrance to a party, and faints, dumbstruck, while the young woman scarpers. What follows is a brutal night of solitary, alcohol-fuelled wandering, which is a prelude to Mathias losing himself in his memories and in feelings from the past which the present strangely insists on bringing to the surface. Will Mathias succeed in freeing himself from the torments which are suffocating him? Will he reconnect with the child he once was, whom he glimpses in a park and whom he soon becomes obsessed with? What kind of future will he choose?

Wonderfully shot by way of Paul Guilhaume’s intense, handheld camera, Two Pianos is a story (whose screenplay was penned by director Kamen Velkovsky) masterfully interlocking two levels: an artistic microcosm (underpinned by fantastic sequences) and Mathias’ private life (involving the gradual revelation of secrets and embers of an impossible love). A sudden event certainly helps with plot development, but this hardly matters given the exceptional quality and density of the overall work, subtly enhanced by narrative complexity, the paradoxical depth of the main characters and a flicker of hope in the familiar, nebulous twilight of Arnaud Desplechin’s cinema. Because "it’s pointless being unhappy, it’s a waste of time."

Two Pianos was produced by Why Not Productions in co-production with Arte France Cinéma and Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Cinéma. Goodfellas are steering international sales.