My Golden Days

Paul Dedalus, an anthropology professor-in-training played by Mathieu Amalric, last graced screens in the 1996 film My Sex Life… Or How I Got Into an Argument. Arnaud Desplechin’s film My Golden Days sees Amalric reprise his role in a study of youth and coming of age, where Paul reminisces over what once was.

Desplechin immediately creates a sense of voyeurism, constricting shots to the size of a small central circle. These moments feel detached, as if Paul is recalling a difficult memory he has tried hard to repress. The first section of the film sees Paul visit the USSR, where, under the pretence of being on a school trip, he gives his identity to a Russian boy of a similar age. The script, written by Desplechin with Julie Peyr, sows hardly subtle seeds whilst developing Paul’s character. He revels in the danger of his mission, but maintains a sadistic, self-preserving level of logic throughout. Paul, played in adolescence by Quentin Dolmaire, is here reminiscent of a young Michael Corleone, sat in a restaurant toilet preparing to kill police captain McClusky. All of his excitement and fear lingers in his eyes, refused allotment on his face. When asked if he was hurt by the mugging he tells his teachers he endured to cover his absence and loss of passport, he cannot contain his smirk. “I’m fine,” he smiles, “I felt nothing.”

The meat of the film comes in the second act, when Paul returns home and meets Esther, played by Lou Roy-Lecollinet. Younger than he, Esther bounces airily back and fourth between men in her life just like Jeanne Moreau’s Catherine in Jules and Jim. It is just as easy to fall in love with Esther, but there is that same aura of sadness that haunted Moreau’s doomed heroine. Irina Lubtchansky’s artful lensing bathes the couple in hopeful sunlight, and the two seem to glow in the dreamy dusk. The tenderness is typified by one beautiful scene where Paul and Esther make love for the first time. The height of nostalgia for Paul, it is gentle and warm – they are utterly lost in each other.

This continuing romanticism is matched blow for blow with harsh reality; both Paul and Esther struggling to remain faithful in the face of their separation when Paul heads off to university. Dolmaire excellently manipulates the indecision within Paul, and as his anger surfaces his passion only increases. He is never dangerous but often cutting, his intellect drowning out what easily could have turned to violence. As for Esther, Roy-Lecollinet is quietly magnificent, depressingly pained in every blink. Still, the film stagnates in its repetition, so that by the time the love affair predictably comes to an end, there is little interest left. This third act highlights nagging issues in the script. Where there is room for the development of interesting relationships – between Paul and his father for example, or his professor cum surrogate parent – Esther takes up too much space.

The end of the film is rescued by a return to the present, where Paul, now middle aged, seeks out the man he holds responsible for tearing he and Esther apart. Amalric reminds us of his brilliance, recalling the righteous passion of Atticus Finch in court. But that anger feels slightly misplaced. If the focus was always the effect Paul and Esther had on one another, then the film is too distracted by undeveloped subplots. Desplechin insists on returning in the film’s final moments to Paul’s notion of his twin existing somewhere in the world – the Russian teen he gave his identity to. This duality, whilst intriguing, is not the main exploration of the film; it’s a little unnecessary. What is striking in My Golden Days is the conflict and perfection of lost love viewed from afar through a haze of regret. “Have you ever been loved more than life?” Paul asks Esther, “It’s how I’ll love you”.