For Valentine’s Day, Arte broadcasts Deception, by Arnaud Desplechin (review)
With Denis Podalydès as an adulterous writer, lover of Léa Seydoux. Is this counter-programming worth it?
“London – 1987. Philip is a famous American writer exiled in London. His mistress regularly comes to see him in his office, which is the refuge of the two lovers. There they make love, argue, meet up and talk for hours; women who mark his life, sex, anti-Semitism, literature, and loyalty to oneself…”
In 2021, Denis Podalydès was the star of the Cannes festival, present in several films in the different competitions. Among them, DeceptionofArnaud Desplechinwhich we will find this evening of Valentine’s Day 2024 on Arte.
“He’s the killer of the Croisette!, we wrote live from the festival at the time. Anaïs Demoustier, Léa Seydoux, Valérie Bruni Tedeschi, Emmanuelle Devos, Madalina Constantin and even Alexandre Steiger run after him and beg for his favors. Poda doesn’t know where to turn anymore.
His thing, as we know, is the corduroy writer side of the nice neighborhoods. The baldness, barely masked by a few cleverly tousled hair, adds to the sex appeal stamped by Gallimard. In The Loves of Anaïs by Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet (Semaine de la Critique) as in Deception by Arnaud Desplechin (Cannes Première), we see his character writing (a little) and sleeping (a lot). And if he doesn’t write in Blood Oranges, he is flirting. Either way, he speaks. A lot. And to say things so beautiful and profound that these prey drown in them. Poda is hardly surprised. Be verb and be silent.”
The ghosts of Ismaël – Arnaud Desplechin: “At night, I still dream of it”
This adaptation of the eponymous novel by Philip Roth therefore takes us to London, in the mid-1980s and follows the story of a famous American writer exiled in England and who multiplies extra-marital adventures, to better write his works. Around Denis Podalydès gravitate Léa Seydoux, Emmanuelle Devos, Gennadi Famin, Anouk Grinberg, Madalina Constantin…
Is deception worth it? Here is our review.
After Roubaix, a light where the filmmaker’s admirers and refractors alike agreed on the unprecedented nature of a film where the author abandoned the heights of an adventurous intellectual bourgeoisie for a ” little “ people stuck in the circles of hell of their daily life, here we are again under more Haussmannian paneling.
Deception, according to Philip Roth, author revered by Arnaud Desplechin, is a mise en abyss around the act of writing. The credo is this: an author, overpowering by nature but above all by duty, can justify all his supposed baseness in the name of inspiration. The baseness here mainly concerns a non-exclusive penchant for his model-mistresses who throw themselves into his arms like fictional doubles coming to play imps. The author thus assailed must test his actions and his speech in order to drown himself entirely in his thoughts. Once confronted with reality (this one has the characteristics of a married woman), what remains except a mountain of unresolved questions that the interlocutor cannot hear?
Arnaud Desplechin assumes the theatricality of an enterprise carried out in confinement and can count on Stradivarius interpreters (the unpredictable Léa Seydoux is worth the trip alone!) All the same, there remains this impression of a long explanation of the text where the clichés are they serve the comedy (we laugh with and against, this little world), however prevent the drama from being born. And in this self-centered business everything eventually runs out. Is this where the deception lies? Maybe.
Roubaix, a light: a dark but uneven thriller (review)
