While it seemed to divide audiences at Cannes showing and has yet to find a wide release,Garrel's latest film is almost as good as anything he has done over the last forty years.Exquisitely photographed by William Lubtchansky,the regular cameraman of Rivette,it depicts a strangely deserted,almost spectral, Paris devoid of tourists and the constant hum of mobile phones.Louis Garrel plays François,a trendy photographer who starts an affair with an unstable married woman.Eventually she is confined to an asylum and commits suicide. After a period of time he has a relationship with a more conventional girl who becomes pregnant.He is accepted by her family and happiness seems to beckon but his obsessive love for the dead woman comes back to haunt him in a manner reminiscent of Cocteau.
There is little dialogue throughout,and like most of his previous work there is a purity of image which is reminiscent of the silent cinema.Unlike "Les amants réguliers",his previous film which was a reflection on the disillusionment of politics,this is more of a return to the subject of obsessional love which has haunted most of his oeuvre.
There is little dialogue throughout,and like most of his previous work there is a purity of image which is reminiscent of the silent cinema.Unlike "Les amants réguliers",his previous film which was a reflection on the disillusionment of politics,this is more of a return to the subject of obsessional love which has haunted most of his oeuvre.