It’s becoming so commonplace that we learn about filmmakers creating secret projects during pandemic lockdown that we may have to create a new subgenre for these pictures. Ben Wheatley, Neill Blomkamp, and others have all taken the pandemic as an opportunity to work on projects previously unscheduled. And it appears that Arnaud Desplechin is set to join that list as well, with his new film, “Deception.”
According to Cineuropa, Desplechin has revealed that during the lockdown in September, the acclaimed French filmmaker went ahead and filmed an adaptation of Philip Roth’s novel, “Deception.” And he was able to secure a pretty great cast that includes Léa Seydoux alongside Denis Podalydès, Emmanuelle Devos, and Gennadi Famin. The novel tells the story of a man and a woman, both in separate marriages, that have a series of conversations about life and society while also engaging in an intimate affair.
“During lockdown, whilst writing a script which would require wide distribution, extras, a complex schedule and lots of locations, a really old project which I’d left up in the air because I’d never worked out how I could do it, or convey its style, suddenly came back to me,” said Desplechin. “Its modesty resonated with the circumstances imposed. Its characters were confined in their solitude, just like I was.”
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He added, “Assisted by my co-screenwriter Julie Peyr, I went through that old script from A to Z. As we wrote, it was as if a carpet were rolling out before us: our two heroes were trapped in the writer’s study, in the same way that we were confined by lockdown, and we found solutions for every problem we faced… ‘Deception’ takes place in a time which now seems idyllic, before the Twin Towers collapsed and before the fall of the Berlin Wall, and it features refugees, notably women from the East.”
For fans of international cinema, Desplechin is a household name. He has enjoyed having six films compete for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival over his career. Those features include “The Sentinel,” “My Sex Life… Or How I Got Into An Argument,” “Esther Kahn,” “A Christmas Tale,” “Jimmy P. – Psychotherapy Of A Plains Indian,” and his most recent feature, “Oh Mercy!” in 2019.
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Considering production was completed in September, it wouldn’t be a crazy guess to assume “Deception” will premiere at next year’s Cannes Film Festival. We’ll just have to wait and see. Regardless, new Desplechin is something we’re always excited about.
