Ismael's Ghosts

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antnield
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Ismael's Ghosts

#1 Post by antnield » Wed May 17, 2017 4:45 am

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Oscar-winner Marion Cotillard (Ma vie en rose), Mathieu Almaric (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) and Charlotte Gainsbourg (Antichrist) team up for the latest feature from acclaimed writer-director Arnaud Desplechin (A Christmas Tale).

Filmmaker Ismael (Almaric) lives with his wife Sylvia (Gainsbourg) but remains obsessed with his ex-wife (Cotillard), who disappeared 20 years ago and is believed to be dead. When she suddenly reappears, Ismael’s life – already complicated by a film project he is unable to finish – takes a strange turn.

Complex, playful and humorous, Ismael’s Ghosts is a wonderful showcase for some of French cinema’s finest acting talent.

LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY CONTENTS
• High Definition (1080p) Blu-ray presentation of the Director’s Cut and the Theatrical Cut [Limited Edition Exclusive]
• DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
• Optional English subtitles
• Interview with director Arnaud Desplechin
• Interview with star Marion Cotillard
• Interview with star Charlotte Gainsbourg
• Theatrical trailer
• Reversible sleeve featuring two artworks
FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector's booklet featuring new writing on the film by Phil Concannon

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What A Disgrace
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Re: Announcements, Speculation & Wild, Irresponsible Conject

#2 Post by What A Disgrace » Wed May 17, 2017 6:42 am

antnield wrote:
Wed May 17, 2017 4:45 am
Arnaud Desplechin's Ismael's Ghosts will be released as part of the Arrow Academy line next year.
Among the extras will be a brand new anamorphic transfer and a chapter list, I'm sure.

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tenia
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Re: Announcements, Speculation & Wild, Irresponsible Conject

#3 Post by tenia » Wed May 17, 2017 7:08 am

Don't forget the original 5.1 track and the trailer.

Any joke aside, the minimum would be to include the 2 cuts of the movie to begin with.

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Re: Announcements, Speculation & Wild, Irresponsible Conject

#4 Post by domino harvey » Wed May 17, 2017 9:20 am

Wish they'd do a Desplechin box

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Re: Forthcoming: Ismael's Ghosts

#5 Post by Werewolf by Night » Wed May 17, 2017 11:27 am

Agree. It's ridiculous how hard-to-acquire his films have become.

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Re: Forthcoming: Ismael's Ghosts

#6 Post by colinr0380 » Wed May 17, 2017 12:23 pm

It might be difficult to do that, at least with the more well known Desplechin films, as in the UK Ma vie sexuelle is out from Pathé, Kings & Queen is out from Artificial Eye and A Christmas Tale from New Wave Films! They're all on DVD though, so could benefit from the Blu-ray upgrade.

(But of course Jimmy P. and My Golden Days might be good to release too!)

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Re: Forthcoming: Ismael's Ghosts

#7 Post by Pepsi » Thu May 18, 2017 8:25 am

Ma vie sexuelle is in 4:3 letterbox, and needs a uppgrade, especially when the "second part", Trois souvenirs de ma jeunesse, someday gets a Blu-Ray release.

Jimmy P. (Blu-ray) you can buy from Amazon.de. It's has the original English soundtrack.

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Re: Forthcoming: Ismael's Ghosts

#8 Post by AidanKing » Thu May 18, 2017 10:32 am

I think My Golden Days is with New Wave too but there still doesn't appear to be a release date in prospect. The same is the case with Jia Zhangke's Mountains May Depart.

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Re: Forthcoming: Ismael's Ghosts

#9 Post by domino harvey » Tue Feb 20, 2018 8:32 pm


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Re: Forthcoming: Ismael's Ghosts

#10 Post by domino harvey » Wed Jun 06, 2018 11:31 am

This will not be the movie to win over any Desplchin skeptics, but I loved this, though I could not tell you what its purpose was. As a "sequel" to Rois et reine, it adds nothing to and builds nothing on the first. Like all Desplechin movies, it is an exhilarating and sometimes exhausting collection of overstuffed moments and narratives winding in and out of each other. There are colorfully unlikable and complicated characters. There's a constant novelty in approach and form. And yes, there's yet another dance scene (and it is one of the weirdest moments I will have watching movies this year, as Marion Cotillard enthusiastically shimmies to an utterly undanceable Bob Dylan song while Charlotte Gainsbourg looks on in polite confusion).

Special shout outs to two of the actors here: the legendary László Szabó steals the movie as an aging political director who in one of the best scenes in the film gets into a completely unnecessary yet beautifully cathartic altercation on the flight to his rep screening-- it's a lovely and unexpected exploration of impotence in all senses of the word; and Louis Garrel, who between this and Le Redoutable has unexpectedly won me over as a comic actor. Every review I've read of this short-shrifts the amount of screentime the spy portions with Garrel receive, but in reality a full third of the film is given over to these extended bits of inspired comic explorations of "lack"-- no easy notes are hit as we follow a character who is not very good at his job, not particularly invested, and yet inexplicably connected for reasons that become clear once we understand his function within the larger picture. These scenes are long, amusing, and unexpected in the routes they take as Desplechin avoids nearly every easy gag or approach, instead arriving on a peculiar comic tone that I'd love to see more of in a future Desplechin vehicle-- though given the toxic response this film received, it probably won't happen!

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Re: Forthcoming: Ismaël's Ghosts

#11 Post by tenia » Wed Jun 06, 2018 11:51 am

Now dated for Sept 24th according to Amazon :

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No details as to which / how many cut(s) will be included, nor the extras.

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Re: Forthcoming: Ismaël's Ghosts

#12 Post by domino harvey » Wed Jun 06, 2018 11:53 am

Haha, I don't blame Arrow for capitalizing on the star power, but anyone going into this looking for the romantic drama depicted by that cover is going to be sorely, sorely disappointed

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Re: Ismael's Ghosts

#13 Post by What A Disgrace » Wed Jun 06, 2018 12:04 pm

Just like Aquarius, I will be reversing the cover art.

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Re: Ismael's Ghosts

#14 Post by domino harvey » Fri Jun 08, 2018 11:25 am

UK TITLE: Ismael’s Ghosts (DVD & Blu-ray)

The latest from from Arnaud Desplechin starring Mathieu Amalric and Mariion Cotillard.

Pre-order Blu-ray in the UK via Arrow: https://arrowfilms.com/product-detai...lu-ray/FCD1735
Pre-order Blu-ray via Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cotillard-C...ds=arrow films

Pre-order DVD in the UK via Arrow: https://arrowfilms.com/product-detai...ts-dvd/FCD1736
Pre-order DVD via Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ismaels-Mat...ds=arrow films

Release date: 24th September

The opening film of the prestigious Cannes Film Festival in 2017, Ismael’s Ghosts is the latest film from celebrated filmmaker Arnaud Desplechin (My Golden Days, Kings and Queen).

Telling the story of Ismael, Mathieu Amalric (The Grand Budapest Hotel, Casino Royale, in his sixth collaboration with Desplechin), a filmmaker preparing to direct his new film has his life turned upside down when his wife (Marion Cotillard, Rust and Bone, Macbeth), who has been missing and presumed dead for twenty years, mysteriously comes back into his life. His girlfriend, Charlotte Gainsbourg (Melancholia, Antichrist) attempts to help Ismael retain his sanity as his personal and professional life spins out of control.

Featuring some of the finest actors working in France today and an incredible supporting cast including Louis Garrel (The Dreamers), Alba Rohrwacher (I Am Love) and László Szabó (The Unbearable Lightness of Being) Ismael’s Ghosts is a stunning showcase for these incredible performers.

LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY CONTENTS

• High Definition (1080p) Blu-ray presentation of the Director’s Cut and the Theatrical Cut [Limited Edition Exclusive]
• DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
• Optional English subtitles
• Interview with director Arnaud Desplechin
• Interview with star Marion Cotillard
• Interview with star Charlotte Gainsbourg
• Theatrical trailer
• Reversible sleeve featuring two artworks

FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector's booklet featuring new writing on the film by Ginette Vincendeau and Phil Concannon

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Re: Ismael's Ghosts

#15 Post by tenia » Fri Jun 08, 2018 11:31 am

The shorter cut is the one used as reference for the product, so I'm unsure which one is exclusive to the LE. I've been told that the shorter cut should be avoided (it hasn't even been released in France on video, and I believe has only been shown theatrically at Cannes), so I hope the longer cut will be the preferred one in the release.

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Re: Ismael's Ghosts

#16 Post by domino harvey » Fri Oct 12, 2018 12:19 am

I hope Arrow includes this Amazon.co.uk user's two-star review of Ismael's Ghosts in full for a future edition's pull-quote:
Not in the age to internet in such a labirent!!

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Re: Ismael's Ghosts

#17 Post by domino harvey » Sat Oct 27, 2018 1:29 pm

What A Disgrace wrote:
Wed Jun 06, 2018 12:04 pm
Just like Aquarius, I will be reversing the cover art.
Unbelievably, Arrow passed up some really great key art concepts in favor of the blandness that we got (and the reverse cover is the even worse original French poster design)

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Re: Ismael's Ghosts

#18 Post by What A Disgrace » Sat Oct 27, 2018 2:40 pm

Yikes. Well.

At least I only ever really have to see the spine?

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Re: Ismael's Ghosts

#19 Post by domino harvey » Sat Oct 27, 2018 10:31 pm

Which is just the pic of Cotillard and Almaric from the cover, so you're prob fine

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Re: Ismael's Ghosts

#20 Post by dda1996a » Tue Dec 11, 2018 3:40 pm

Anyone who's seen both cuts can tell me which one to watch, and if I should give both cuts a watch?

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Re: Ismael's Ghosts

#21 Post by domino harvey » Tue Dec 11, 2018 4:22 pm

I haven't seen the shorter version, but I can't imagine cutting anything from the longer version, so I have no desire to sit through it. Windy, long narrative messes are Desplechin's raison d'etre, why watch a truncated version?

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Re: Ismael's Ghosts

#22 Post by dda1996a » Wed Dec 12, 2018 2:09 am

Having seen My Sex Life I agree, just wondered maybe this is a rare case of shorter=better, as I saw a few films on their Director's cut and was very disappointed (I hated Diva afterwards so maybe it doesn't change anything, but the 3 hours version of Betty Blue is so tedious as to potentially ruin what many others liked in it's regular cut)

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Re: Ismael's Ghosts

#23 Post by therewillbeblus » Wed May 13, 2020 9:02 pm

Revisiting this for the first time since its release heightened its placement in my esteem and also served as an important step in Desplechin's filmography. On the surface, the film functions as a sequel for Mathieu Amalric's character in Kings and Queen, and meditates on familiar Desplechin themes such as the contradictions within people, complicated emotional experience, and regret. The ghosts of the title reference both the figurative ghost of Ismael's missing wife reappearing after 20+ years, as well as the ghosts we all bear, and how we define our strengths and weaknesses to search for meaning that can never fully surface, lost in the constant accrual of time.

The lack of understanding of nightmares underscores this concept of dysregulation in response to enigmas. Marion Cotillard becomes the physical manifestation of loss, pain, and the burial of emotional cancers in the backs of our memory, spontaneously infiltrating our present. Her impenetrable nature is exemplified in countless ways from the offbeat dance to the Bob Dylan song to her erratic social behavior going unexplained even by her, even to herself. Desplechin, always one to seemingly insert personal abstract philosophical-emotional states into his work, may be facing this crossroads himself. He always appears to be in some kind of mesh of existential crisis and serene acceptance through his cinema, but these evolve in careful shifts. By making films, I believe Desplechin achieves a therapeutic process, and offers one for us, declaring in his own unique way that this is something we have and will all wrestle with some day, and likely already are within our own stage of life.

barryconvex once said to me that in watching this movie, he felt that "the line dividing Paul and Ismael as separate entities has become almost totally amorphous" and I agree. Ismael has become a cumulative stand-in for Desplechin’s own convoluted mess of an identity, and a reflection of all of us. Sex, drugs, writing, directing, having and raising children, caring for another person in general, or spouting words at someone and conversing in a stream of exhausting energy are all tactile, perceptible tools to prolong our elevation from the gravity inevitably pulling us Into the abyss of the unknown. Ismael is exhausted all the time, he even declares as much late in the film, just like Desplechin's approach to filmmaking; and just when our main story is becoming too unbearably emotionally heavy, and when the comic solemnity of Ismael is failing him, we have Louis Garrel's narrative inserted in to reprieve us with action, comedy, romance, and welcome distraction. Desplechin understands that distraction, like film, art, working, or any of the above methods, can be healthy to counteract the self-reflective practices that are unavoidable to the 'thinking' cognitive-emotional heavy 'intellectual,' by which Desplechin and his characters identify.

As is typical for Desplechin, reasons don’t matter, only emotion does - Cotillard comes back because of a mysterious feeling, a realization that sobers her, but not to any specific epiphany, only a direction. Desplechin’s films are enigmas made tangible though, bloated yet spacious messes of all the emotional turmoil flowing through humans as they interact with the mysterious landscapes of their external and internal terrains. A sex scene focuses on the beautiful details of the process, every ounce carrying magic and meaning, but these cannot be pronounced properly through our methods of translation. They can be seen and heard, but the meaning is in the space between- and Desplechin offers that space in the only way he knows how: tangled, uneven, diverse assimilations with rage and agency rising up against the challenge with all those tools of self-expression, accentuated and on fire! He even borrows lines and visualizations from art that has inspired his own windy road of self-actualization, including bouts of catharsis and provocative disarming questioning. The conflicts of powerlessness in fleeting escapism and empowered reclamation of wills are best articulated in Henri’s conference speech, which is probably the closest Desplechin has come to himself verbalizing a succinct thesis for his worldview. Though Charlotte Gainsbourg's final coda that holds the negative emotions of her brother with the overwhelmingly positive of her own situation with Ismael is the ultimate conflict of emotional mud that make up any situation and prevent absolute harmony, yet not mutually exclusive from happiness.

In this specific entry, the bearings on narrative take an unexpectedly sharp and deep disbanding, even for a Desplechin film. The void of reality itself is challenged as much as tone or narrative. Characters depart or appear unprompted, fictions blur with history, creators and their creations engage, and surrealism bears no clarity of metaphor. All we are provided is an exhibition of emotion, in a psychological film that has no interest in giving us holds for concrete analysis. Desplechin has never been interested in this, because it's not how he sees the world. He's wise and intelligent in this position, but cursed to keep searching for answers when he knows there is no finite solution. The humanity is all that remains, and he holds onto that acceptance as well as the courage to refine and participate in his milieu with the tools he has all the same, embracing life's grand paradox.

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Re: Ismael's Ghosts

#24 Post by knives » Sun May 31, 2020 12:36 pm

The short version is all that is streaming and a few of the cuts are pretty obvious. It's still a great film even in this truncated form begging for a better presentation then I could afford.

Most of the cut scenes seem from the spy adventures which is unfortunate as it only implies the weight I desired it to have. From the A story there were a couple of obvious cuts as well. The one that stands out the most is with Amalric's first confrontation against Collitard. If I had to take a guess I imagine it has several very long shots because it is currently edited with a lot of fades that don't occur elsewhere in the film.

Despite this truncating the film comes across as one of Desplechin's best. I think I might rank it above My Golden Days which I thought was very impressive.

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