Nora and Ismaël are former lovers whose lives have diverged onto two very different paths.Nora is a woman who dives into memories that threaten to overwhelm her; her father is dying of cancer, but she will find relief from all the tragedies she has been through. Ismaël, a violinist caught up in a succession of burlesque adventures, and who is psychiatrically imprisoned yet always rushing, unaware, towards freedom. As Nora confronts the death of her father, Ismäel, is dismissed from his string quartet and forced into a psychiatric hospital. Ismaël’s relationship to Nora’s young son, Elias, who was an infant when Nora began living with Ismael becomes a driving point for sustaining their friendship. Despite his instability Nora knows they must remain friends in order to keep Ismaël in Elias’s life. The two characters interact on screen only twice, yet the film becomes a testimony that the lives of any couple who have experienced a deep love are perpetually intertwined.Arnaud Desplechin was born in Roubaix, France in 1960 and graduated from the Institut des Hautes Études Cinématographiques in Paris. The writer-director of several features, his distinctive works often stand on a knife-edge between the perfectly ordinary and the disconcerting. His unpredictable narratives constantly surprise. -AHS

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