Regular Lovers

I can see the connection to Eustache's "The Mother and the Whore", a film I saw many years ago, and which should have been excruciatingly boring, but I somehow ended up liking. It's possible my patience has left me since then, or else "Regular Lovers" is so tedious I felt like clawing my eyes and ears off. I admit I eventually gave up, but I did endure most of this torture.

The first hour drags on a bit, but the remaining two are nuanced, sophisticated (yet emotionally muted) drama very reminiscent of La Maman et la Putain, that was clearly an influence. It's said that Garrel wanted to make this film when he saw his son in The Dreamers and thought he could tell the story of these times much better than that very mediocre film, and he indeed succeeded doing so.

Clear-eyed and critical view of May '68, with a strong sense of melancholy over the aftermath. Garrel focuses on the small moments between big events, leaving mysterious the motives during and after the riot. Instead, Garrel is interested in the personal cost, the bleeding away of foggy ideals in a haze of drugs and sex. When the character Antoine notes that he has created a world without regulation, completely given over to personal desire, we understand the source of the downward spiral.

It's not something you might enjoy, but it is something you should watch.

too long