For about thirty-one years, since the release of his medium-length film La vie des morts, Arnaud Desplechin has constructed one of the most well-planned reputations in the field of directors that hold auteur status. This is visible in all of his films. The lion’s share takes place in (or makes references to) Roubaix, the town in Northern France where the director was born, three have the same recurrent character, whose modestly ironic name is Paul Dédalus, a few of them create a subject or theme out of the unrelenting hate between the members of the same family (usually, a brother and a sister), most follow the anxieties and disillusions of a well-educated, yet neurotic French middle class with carefully-studied negligence in their structure. I cannot think of any other contemporary director that would cite his previous films so discreetly, but especially so often. For example, in his recent Brother and Sister / Frère et soeur, which is almost a stylized remake of his best film, A Christmas Tale / Un conte de Noël (2008), one of the secondary characters is named Faunia – exactly like another important secondary character in Un conte de Noël or another from Ismael’s Ghosts / Les fantômes d’Ismaël (2017). With small gestures such as this one, Desplechin always leaves behind traces for those who will want to read his films as a grand and coherent opera.

Radu Toderici

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Radu Toderici is a film critic and researcher. Lately he’s interested in the history of the Romanian cinema during socialism. He writes for Steaua literary magazine and is also a professor at the University of Theatre & Film Babes-Bolyai, from Cluj. He believes the recipe for a good life includes at least one and a half film a day.

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