Arnaud Desplechin's My Golden Days is the french filmmaker's attempt at a coming of age tale, telling the story of Paul Dedalus, an anthropologist who is preparing to leave Tajikistan, where he spent many years, and return to his native country of France. Returning home, Paul reminisces about his adolescent years, with much of My Golden Days being told via a series of flashbacks, touching on his early childhood, his mother's attacks of madness, the love of his life, his father's depression, and the perceived betrayal of one of his best friends. The "coming of age" story has got to be one of the most overused concepts in all of filmmaking, and while Arnaud Desplechin's My Golden Days doesn't bring much new to the table in its examination of youthful defiance, and exuberance, it's a film that captures the loneliness associated with growing up in a very real way. Paul is a character who very much lives in the moment, a defiant young man who has never been the same since the suicide of his mother. Paul's father is a loving man, but has never been the same since the death of his wife, stuck in a cycle of despair. Through his tragic youth, Paul has become a character who shows little fear or restraint in life, a social loner of sorts who flees France as soon as possible, unable and unwilling to continue to deal with the dark cloud which hangs over his father and family. The main driving force of this story is Paul's relationship with Esther, the "love of his life" which he spends many years in a long term relationship with. It's this relationship in which Desplechin captures the strain which loneliness creates, as Esther, a strong-willed young woman earlier in the film, begins to grow far too dependent, with a lack of companionship outside of Paul creating an unhealthy relationship. Solitude & Loneliness are really concepts that hang over the entire film, from the depressed father, to Paul's own self-made solitude, with Desplechin seemingly expressing how it's a big part of growing up, the self-discovery of how small one truly is the grand scheme of things. Through this reflection of youth, My Golden Days examines the relationship between individualism, loneliness, and companionship, with the story of Paul delivering a narrative that feels unpredictable and organic, as we following this young man as he tries to find his place in the world and understand exactly what he wants, even if he simply doesn't know it yet. While I'd argue that the film becomes too manic at times, with Arnaud Desplechin caught going on small tangents, My Golden Days is a film that captures the emotions of growing up in a very real way, exhibiting a headstrong character in Paul who stumbles and falls, shaped by a tragic past that pushes him towards his own self-made future.
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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