Few Cannes titles intrigue as highly as the festival’s opener, Ismael’s Ghosts, which writer-director Arnaud Desplechin (following up My Golden Days) told me takes inspiration primarily from Hitchcock (Vertigo) and Philip Roth (Sabbath’s Theater), with (of course) Mathieu Amalric at the center of it all. Anchored also by Marion Cotillard, Cuharlotte Gainsbourg, and Louis Garrel, it’s the story of, as he told me at a later date, people “fighting for a new life, to reinvent themselves,” and possibly with some Kendrick Lamar thrown in for good measure.
Its first trailer has arrived sans subtitles, but with numerous gorgeous images and, let’s say, the implication of fine turns from its very great ensemble — a guess based on intimations of what’s being said and a study of the non-verbal, which I think, for now, is good enough. Better yet: Mangolia has already acquired Ismael’s Ghosts for a U.S. release, and the wait for more — one that’s very strongly felt around these parts — is one that should require little patience.
Watch below, and check back next month for our review from Cannes:
Ismaël Vuillard makes films. He is in the middle of one about Ivan, an atypical diplomat inspired by his brother. Along with Bloom, his master and father-in-law, Ismaël still mourns the death of Carlotta, twenty years earlier. Yet he has started his life over again with Sylvia. Sylvia is his light. Then Carlotta returns from the dead. Sylvia runs away. Ismaël rejects Carlotta. Driven mad by these ordeals, he abandons the shoot for his family home in Roubaix. There, he lives as a recluse, besieged by his ghosts.