Kings & Queen (2004) Rois et reine (original title)

Director:

Arnaud Desplechin

Writers:

Arnaud Desplechin (scenario & dialogue) &
Roger Bohbot (scenario & dialogue)

Release Date:

22 December 2004 (France)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama | Romance

Plot:

Parallel storylines tell the current state of affairs for two ex-lovers: Nora's a single mother who comes to care for her terminally ill father; holed in up in mental ward, Ismael, a brilliant musician, plots his escape.

Plot Keywords:

Grenoble | Musician | Psychiatric Hospital | Cancer | Viola

Awards:

10 wins & 9 nominations

Cast

Emmanuelle Devos	...	Nora Cotterelle
Geoffrey Carey	...	Claude
Thierry Bosc	...	M. Mader
Olivier Rabourdin	...	Jean-Jacques
Maurice Garrel	...	Louis Jenssens
Valentin Lelong	...	Elias Cotterelle
Olivier Borle	...	Le moniteur
Didier Sauvegrain	...	Le chirurgien
Mathieu Amalric	...	Ismaël Vuillard
François Toumarkine	...	Prospero
Miglen Mirtchev	...	Caliban
Marc Bodnar	...	Le psy de garde
Jean-Paul Roussillon	...	Abel Vuillard
Catherine Rouvel	...	Monique Vuillard
Catherine Deneuve	...	Mme Vasset
Noémie Lvovsky	...	Elizabeth
Jan Hammenecker	...	Nicolas
Nathalie Boutefeu	...	Chloé Jenssens
Marie-Françoise Gonzales	...	L'infirmière
Joachim Salinger	...	Pierre Cotterelle
Daniel Cohen	...	Le gynécologue
Fred Epaud	...	L'employé de mairie (as Frédéric Epaud)
Claude Phor	...	Le dingue
Karim Belkhadra	...	L'interne psy
Hippolyte Girardot	...	Maître Marc Mamanne
Elsa Wolliaston	...	Dr. Devereux (as Elsa Woliaston)
Gaëlle Dill	...	Victorine
Magali Woch	...	Arielle
Shulamit Adar	...	Mme Seyvos
Marc Betton	...	Léopold Virag, l'éditeur
Gilles Cohen	...	Simon
Francis Leplay	...	Christian, le félon
Bernard Garnier	...	Le médecin-légiste
Joël Dahan	...	L'auteur
Rachid Hami	...	Marcello
Marion Touitou	...	Delphine
Yann Coridian	...	Fidèle
Andrée Tainsy	...	La grand-mère
Sarah Lefèvre	...	L'amie de Nora
Denis Falgoux	...	Le flic
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Laurencina Lam	...	Hospital receptionist (uncredited)
Anh Lili	...	(uncredited)
Alain Pointier	...	L'huissier (uncredited)

Directed by
Arnaud Desplechin

Writing credits
Arnaud Desplechin		(scenario & dialogue) &
Roger Bohbot		(scenario & dialogue)

Produced by
Pascal Caucheteux	....	producer

Original Music by
Grégoire Hetzel

Cinematography by
Eric Gautier

Film Editing by
Laurence Briaud

Casting by
Stéphane Touitou

Production Design by
Dan Bevan

Costume Design by
Nathalie Raoul

Makeup Department
Frédéric Lainé	....	special makeup effects artist
Benoît Lestang	....	special makeup effects artist
Eric Monteil	....	key hair stylist
Thi-Loan Nguyen	....	key makeup artist

Production Management
Marine Billet	....	assistant unit manager
Mederic Bourlat	....	unit production manager
Martine Cassinelli	....	production manager
Laurencina Lam	....	post-production manager
Thibault Mattei	....	production general manager
Monica Taverna	....	second unit manager
Isabelle Tillou	....	production manager
Augustin Werkoff	....	assistant unit manager
Edouard Decker	....	assistant unit manager (uncredited)

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Barbara Canale	....	assistant director
Julien Greco	....	second assistant director
Denis Kralj	....	second assistant director
Gabriele Roux	....	first assistant director

Art Department
Yann Dury	....	construction coordinator
Mohamed Jabbad	....	assistant art director
Sophie Lampkin	....	head painter
Laurent Saimond	....	property master
Nathalie Serrière	....	assistant art director
Maxime Girault	....	art department trainee (uncredited)

Sound Department
Nicolas Bouvet	....	assistant sound editor
Frank Ceven	....	assistant foley artist
Pascal Chauvin	....	foley artist
Yves Coméliau	....	assistant sound
Edouard d'Heucqueville	....	sound mix technician
Rym Debbarh-Mounir	....	dialogue editor
Jean-Pierre Laforce	....	sound re-recording mixer
Sophie Laloy	....	assistant sound
Claire-Anne Largeron	....	sound editor
Christian Monheim	....	sound
Sébastien Noiré	....	sound editor
Seppe van Groeningen	....	boom operator
Benjamin Viau	....	assistant foley artist

Camera and Electrical Department
Néwine Behi	....	second assistant camera
Patrick de Ranter	....	Steadicam operator
Claudia Imbert	....	assistant camera
Nicolas Leroy	....	grip
Jean-Claude Lother	....	still photographer
Pascale Marin	....	assistant camera
Eric Martinot	....	key grip
Thomas Collignon	....	second assistant camera (uncredited)

Casting Department
Amélie Covillard	....	extras casting assistant
Viviane Lesser	....	casting: children

Editorial Department
Idit Bloch	....	assistant editor
Célia Lafitedupont	....	assistant editor
Jérôme Pey	....	additional assistant editor
Benjamin Weill	....	assistant editor

Music Department
Thomas Jamois	....	soundtrack producer
Stéphane Reichart	....	music scoring mixer

Other crew
Marie Barré	....	location scout
Lysiane Biagini	....	location scout
Agnès Chabot	....	press attache
Sylvia Pain	....	administrator
Emmanuel Dehaene	....	additional location assistant (uncredited)

Production Companies

• Why Not Productions
• France 2 Cinéma (co-production)
• Rhône-Alpes Cinéma (co-production)
• Centre National de la Cinématographie (CNC) (participation)
• Procirep (participation)
• Canal+ (participation)
• CinéCinéma (participation)
• Centre Européen Cinématographique Rhône-Alpes (participation)
• Cofimage 15 (participation)
• Wild Bunch (participation)

Distributors

• 791 Cine (2007) (Argentina) (theatrical)
• Bac Films (2004) (France) (theatrical)
• Filmhouse (2005) (Mexico) (theatrical)
• Groupement National des Cinémas de Recherche (GNCR) (2004) (France) (theatrical)
• JMH Distribution (2005) (Switzerland) (theatrical) (French speaking region)
• JMH Distribution (2005) (Switzerland) (theatrical) (German speaking region)
• Wellspring Media (2005) (USA) (theatrical) (subtitled)
• Wild Bunch (2004) (worldwide) (theatrical)
• Amazonia Films (2004-2012) (Venezuela) (all media)
• Four Films (2007) (Chile) (DVD)
• Orlando Films (2005) (Israel) (all media)
• Wellspring Media (2005) (USA) (DVD)

Other Companies

• Kodak  film stock
• Les Auditoriums de Joinville  sound re-recording (as Auditoriums de Joinville)

Also Known As:

"Rois et reine" - France (original title)
"Kings and Queen" - International (English title)

Runtime:

France:150 min | USA:150 min | Argentina:150 min

Country:

France

Language:

French | English | German

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Switzerland:16 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:16 (canton of Vaud) | UK:15 | France:U | USA:Unrated | Brazil:14 | Hungary:16 | Japan:PG-12 | Portugal:M/16 | Argentina:16 | South Korea:15 | Australia:M

Filming Locations:

Grenoble, Isère, France

Company:

Why Not Productions

Trivia:

Swiss visa # 1005.091.

Quotes:

Nora Cotterelle:There are four men I loved. I killed two of them.

Movie Connections:

References Notorious (1946)

Soundtrack:

Moon River

Beautifully Fascinating Deconstruction of Intersecting Families

"Kings and Queen (Rois et reine)" is a deceptively beautiful looking exploration of the differences between appearances and substance.

Our first impressions of each parallel character who seems to have no relation with any other character undergo a complete turn-around by the time we have finished circling around them in time and space at the end of the film, especially as we begin to realize they are unreliable, self-serving narrators of their own experiences.

Each person is part of a very modern blended family, both by genetics and selection, and faces the most quotidian of life cycle decisions -- life, birth, marriage, paying bills, parent/child responsibilities, Laingian sanity and particularly death -- and makes a different choice how to handle them, whether active or passive, peremptorily or as fate.

But each choice leads them to the next unexpected plateau of choices with guilt hanging on each move. For each, doing the right thing means something completely different as each responds differently to an emotional and physical crisis.

Though psychoanalysis is drolly mocked as just another philosophy, each character may be eccentric or seriously crazy and undergoes Freudian traumatizations by family in casually cruel ways that alternate between funny and shocking (and sometimes absurd).

Director/co-writer Arnaud Desplechin revels in the diversity of his characters, so that as their orbits collide they can hardly communicate because their frames of reference are so different.

The acting brilliantly matches the unexpected revelations that flash back to let us know how each character got to be this person and the transformations to where they are going. Emmanuelle Devos as "Nora" lusciously fills the screen even as we find that her nonchalant beauty masks the devastation she leaves in her wake as it helps her use others for her selfish needs.

Desplechin has frequently cited Woody Allen as an influence (and "Seinfeld"), and Mathieu Amalric's Ismaël is a tribute to that talkative, intellectual Jewish persona and Philip Roth is mentioned as well, though this character is much more up on hip pop music and surprisingly matures as he gains far more humanity than his New York inspirations.

The film is long and slow, but curiosity about how each character got to where the film started is involving.

It's impossible to keep up with all the erudite references to poetry (Desplechin says the title comes from a chess metaphor in a French poem: "King without kingdom/ Queen without a scene/ Castle broken/ Bishop betrayed/ Fool as a brave man"), literature, mythology, art, music and film ("Moon River" seems to be used frequently these days).

Eric Gautier's cinematography is sensual and is particularly dreamy when an awful event occurs.

The production design creates illustrative environments for each person and family, as every object around each character has ironic counterpoint to the dialog.

The soundtrack eclectically extends from electronica to klezmer to hip hop to singer/songwriters Paul Weller and Randy Newman to classical and more that reflect the characters' psychological mise en scenes.