And Now Ladies and Gentlemen

Director and co-writer Claude Lelouch (A Man and a Woman) begins this meandering, billowy puff of romantic fantasy with a quote from Alfred de Musset: “Life is a deep sleep, of which love is the dream.” The French new-wave icon once again treats life and love as a near mystic adventure as two lost souls flee their pasts to discover each other and rediscover themselves. Jeremy Irons plays a jewel thief and master of disguise who attempts to escape his criminal past. Renown recording and cabaret vocalist Patricia Kaas plays a nightclub singer who attempts to escape a recent broken affair with a jazz trumpet player. The two characters’ parallel stories intersect in Morocco where both, suffering from memory lapses, visit the same medical office and then seek a cure from the gravesite of a legendary local healer. The film is a witty, melancholy, luminous wisp of nonsense that is much more concerned with lyricism, glamour and music than actual content.