My Golden Days is a prequel to Arnaud Desplechin’s debut, My Sex Life… Or How I got into an Argument (1996). When Paul Dédalus returns to France after living in Tajikistan for several years, he is detained at the airport and questioned by the police. It transpires that a Russian with the same name died in Australia. This provokes a recollection of three memories from Paul's youth: his childhood with his eccentric mother who died young and his apathetic father; a school trip to Russia with a secret; and his first love, Esther. In My Golden Days, Paul Dédalus—a character from two previous Desplechin films—reappears here as a youth, long before he becomes a professor of philosophy. The director’s adroit ability draws on this time of energy and vitality with well-matched images and narration—Esther symbolizing hope and despair, dreams and failure as the precious memories of youth—of memories that resonate in the present. My Golden Days was one of the most talked about movies at Cannes this year. (RHEE Soue-won)