[yasr_overall_rating]
The story follows a filmmaker whose life is sent into a tailspin by the return of a former lover just as he is about to embark on the shoot of a new film.
Arnaud Desplechin and I just don’t seem to be on the same wavelength. His 2015 coming-of-age drama “My Golden Days” had so much potential, had it stuck to the leads and developed one or two strands properly, instead of veering off in multiple directions. I couldn’t keep up with his rambling rhetoric – evident in my own somewhat rambling review – and, although I liked the film, I wished Desplechin would hone in his predilection for self-indulgence in his next features, and just focus.
Judging by “Ismael’s Ghost,” not only has that not happened, the filmmaker’s ventured deeper into showcasing his personal preoccupations, with little thought to clear character development and a disregard for his audience. Clearly literate and passionate, Desplechin has trouble stuffing all of his existential musings, political diatribes and heartfelt tendencies towards melodrama into a coherent narrative. Despite compelling lead performances – which only make you wish the film cohered better – “Ismael’s Ghosts” ends up a turgid mess.
Ismael (Mathieu Amalric) is a middle-aged filmmaker, working on his next artsy spy thriller. It involves a secret agent, Ivan (Louis Garrel), being recruited by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In real life, Ivan happens to be Ismael’s prodigal (read: mythical) diplomat brother, haunting him.
Ismael, who lives with girlfriend Sylvia (Charlotte Gainsbourg) by the seaside, visits the still-grieving father of his long-missing wife, Carlotta (Marion Cotillard). It’s been 20 years since she left into nowhere, but Ismael is – you guessed it – haunted by the ghost of Carlotta – sometimes literally, in nightmares that make him fall out of bed, screaming. Then Carlotta nonchalantly appears on the beach, claiming to be homeless and wanting to reclaim her husband.
“Sleep with her and I’ll kill you,” Sylvia threatens when Ismael rushes over to his wife. As he rages and smashes furniture around Carlotta, demanding an explanation for her disappearance, Carlotta provides a long, dreamy one, summed up in her final statement: “I abandoned all of you. You weighed too heavy. Or I weighed too heavy.” Apparently, one day she “became light” in India, and even married a man, who died three weeks ago. Emotions flare up. Everything seems to lead to a kinky ménage à trois – but then Sylvia leaves Ismael in his chateau by the sea, with the gorgeous wife reincarnated from his past.
Up until this point, the film may be melodramatic, but it’s eloquently written and focused, building towards some sort of a cataclysmic climax. Then, in an odd twist, Desplechin decides to instead deviate off the path – the focus not so much blurring as switching off entirely – and the film becomes a rambling mess of half-formed ideas and unfinished threads. Carlotta sort of disappears again, to reappear later and haunt her poor father. Ismael runs off his set, leaving his film incomplete, and goes into hiding, while Sylvia elopes to the mountains. When a producer tries to lure Ismael back, the borderline-mad, delusional director shoots him with a gun. The film becomes a psycho-study of Ismael, with dashes of his (excruciatingly long) cinematic visions and immaterial sociopolitical context thrown in for good measure.
The dialogue is eloquently written, which is to be expected from Desplechin. Especially in the first half, the filmmaker skillfully involves you, despite the sentimental flourishes, which would have perhaps fared better onstage – all this spastic screaming and heightened emotion, mon Dieu! But the trio – Amalric, Cotillard, and especially Gainsbourg – are highly watchable, the scenery is beautiful, and we succumb to the “Nicholas-Sparks-by-way-of-Jean-Paul-Sartre” narrative.
But then it all becomes too much. “Ismael’s Ghosts” switches perspectives – from the protagonist’s visualized fictional script to his hallucinatory visions, to Sylvia’s narration, to all the flashbacks – so many times, it becomes tiresome, repetitive and confusing. Artistic flourishes, like the odd intermittent fades within the same scenes and over-saturated flashbacks, add little to enhance or stabilize the story. There are unexpected, strange deviations, such as the long, long rant that Carlotta’s father embarks on while boarding a plane and the consequent, even longer, politically-infused speech at a film festival.
“Ismael’s Ghosts” tries hard to avoid sentimentality, but Desplechin can’t help it, with characters screaming out things like, “A thousand times I thought you were dead!” As if that weren’t enough, the film contains a character breaking the fourth wall and directly addressing the audience – oh, and lest I forget, there’s an exploding head.
Reign it in, Arnaud. Watching your films is like reading someone’s essay, which starts off focused and involving and then becomes scattered with fervent footnotes and digressions. As it stands, “Ismael’s Ghosts”, despite the star cast and prestige filmmaking team, is bound to become a specter in the filmmaker’s ever-growing filmography.
Opens in theaters Friday, March 23rd in New York and on Friday, March 30th in Los Angeles
