AFS Essentials: Les Amants Réguliers

Poor Philippe Garrel. He has made dozens of films over the last four decades, but has been mostly overlooked stateside because he didn't fit into the tidy (or not so tidy) box of French New Wave, thereby not enjoying the peripheral fame brought about by heavy hitters such as Godard, Truffaut, or Melville. In truth, his work adopts some of the aesthetics of the Nouvelle Vague, but never truly adheres to their strict code of craftsmanship, which may be why Austin Film Society has titled their new retrospective of his work French Maverick, Rebel Auteur: Four Films of Philippe Garrel. Tonight, the first offering in this Essential Series is actually the latest film in Garrel's repertoire, the beautiful and quiet Les Amants Réguliers, or for the non-french speaking among us, The Regular Lovers.

What critics deemed to be the "holler back" to Bernardo Bertolucci's The Dreamers, The Regular Lovers is the most autobiographical of Garrel's work, chronicling the political events that unfolded during the summer of 1968, leading to the eventual collapse of the De Gaulle government. The revolution, started by idealistic artists and students, had a profound effect on Garrel, who as a 20-year-old didn't truly understand the battle between the classes in France or the political bureaucracy that controlled much of their lives. To add to the personal nature of the film, Garrel cast his own son, Louis, in the lead role of François.