Philippe Garrel

  • Philippe Garrel – La cicatrice intérieure AKA The Inner Scar (1972)

    1971-1980ArthouseCultFrancePhilippe GarrelThe Films of May '68

    This is a highly experimental French film consisting of no more than 23 camera shots, total. It resembles nothing so much as one of Warhol’s earlier films, except that it is more episodic. Nico of the Velvet Underground portrays a different woman in each of the episodes. The first three concern her “rescues” from Death Valley, Egypt and Iceland by a young man to whom she eventually says “stay away from me.” Following that, she recites from various texts in German, French and English, makes various gnomic observations and encounters various men in various guises. All the men are played either by director Philippe Garrel or Pierre Clementi.Read More »

  • Philippe Garrel – L’enfant secret AKA The Secret Child (1979)

    1971-1980ArthouseFrancePhilippe Garrel

    Quote:
    Four chapters based on the birth of a ‘secret child’, or a film, with chapter titles: “La séction Césarienne” (Caesarian section: a descriptive detail introducing the mother); “Le dernier guerrier” (the last warrior: how the father sees himself); “Le cercle ophydique” (the serpent’s closed circle: the couple reunites at the psychiatric ward); “Les forêts désenchantées” (unfairy forests: the film in the making).Read More »

  • Philippe Garrel – Le sel des larmes AKA The Salt of Tears (2020)

    2011-2020FrancePhilippe GarrelRomance

    Quote:
    A provincial youngster who travels up to Paris to sit an entrance exam for a “grande école”. His path crosses that of a young woman and they strike up a short-lived relationship.Read More »

  • Philippe Garrel – Liberté, la nuit (1983)

    1981-1990DramaFrancePhilippe GarrelPolitics

    a title with a comma in the middle for a film divided in two parts. A film in black and white with a dark side and a jovial side. The first part of the title evokes politics, as the story recalls the days of the Algerian War of Independence; the second part represents the mood that hovers over the eminently painful images. There isn’t even a hint of daylight in the freedom of the title. It only lives metaphorically in the darkness and languor of the night. — description by Violeta Kovacsics in the book “Philippe Garrel: Filmmaking Revealed”Read More »

  • Philippe Garrel – Un Ange Passe (1975)

    1971-1980ArthouseFrancePhilippe Garrel

    Un Ange Passe is a portrait of Philippe Garrel’s father, Maurice. “I made it so it didn’t cost too much. I made it very quickly. It turned out to be a film that looked exactly like it costs — it was industrially just right. But it was also useful to do to show love to my father.” —Philippe GarrelRead More »

  • Philippe Garrel – La Frontière de l’aube AKA Frontier of the Dawn (2008)

    2001-2010ArthouseDramaFrancePhilippe Garrel

    Love is a universe of two in Philippe Garrel’s fatalistic romance “Frontier of Dawn.” Shot in richly textured and contrasting black-and-white celluloid, it centers on a young photographer, François (Louis Garrel, the filmmaker’s son), and the two women with whom he finds and loses love. After his affair ends with Carole (Laura Smet), a famous actress given to flare-ups and meltdowns, he immerses himself in a new life with Eve (Clémentine Poidatz), who promises him a child and perhaps a chance at real happiness. There’s more, including madness, electroshock treatment, a discussion about the cost of baby diapers, and the sudden emergence of a ghost in a mirror, all of which Mr. Garrel connects so loosely that they feel more like moments out of time than narrative fragments. — Manohla Dargis, The New York TimesRead More »

  • Philippe Garrel – Le vent de la nuit aka Night Wind (1999)

    1991-2000ArthouseDramaFrancePhilippe Garrel

    Le Vent de la Nuit bears little resemblance to the first film in our series, Les Amants Réguliers, made only six years later. The latter, with its rich, fathomless depths of black-and-white photography and insular, period setting stands in stark relief to the former’s auburn-tinged, deep-focus, wide-angle lensing of modern-day Paris, Naples and Berlin. Even so, Le Vent is unmistakably a film by Philippe Garrel, with its deliberate pacing, recurring themes of bitter regret, lost love and longing across generations and relentless focus on the emotional landscape of its three central characters, all which immediately connect it to his other work.Read More »

  • Philippe Garrel – La naissance de l’amour AKA The birth of love (1993)

    1991-2000DramaFrancePhilippe Garrel


    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    A dispassionate and bedraggled middle-aged actor named Paul (Lou Castel) bids a polite farewell to the lady of the house, Hélène (Dominique Reymond) before setting out into the street, accompanied by his solemn and equally impassive host Markus (Jean-Pierre Léaud) to the local convenience store to purchase a pack of cigarettes before saying goodbye to his old friend for the evening. Seeking to break the pensive silence of their evening walk, Paul steers their idle conversation into a conduit for personal reflection on Markus’ seemingly life-altering moment when he first met Hélène, a question that Markus – perhaps betraying an insecurity over the tenuous state of his relationship with her – responds to the question with initial, guarded skepticism, before proceeding to tell the genial anecdote of Hélène’s forwardness in her suggestive, inviting remark that had serve to validate their coy, thinly veiled pursuit of mutual seduction during their second encounter. However, a succeeding conversation between the couple reveals Hélène’s increasing apathy towards the cultivation of their relationship as Markus attempts to elicit a validation of her love for him to no avail, disguising their failed, awkward intimacy through the mundane rituals of the kitchen and random comments about the war.Read More »

  • Philippe Garrel – Les ministères de l’art (1989)

    1981-1990ArthouseFrancePhilippe GarrelTV


    Documentary on post-Nouvelle Vague directors with Benoît Jacquot, André Téchiné, Jacques Doillon, Chantal Akerman, Werner Schroeter, Juliette Berto, Leos Carax and footage of Jean Eustache.
    Read More »

Back to top button