Screening Dates
  • September 21, 2018 8:35
  • September 22, 2018 6:30
  • September 23, 2018 6:30
  • September 24, 2018 8:35
  • September 26, 2018 8:35
New Restoration

“One of the key French films of the ​‘90s.”

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader

Two years before his festival breakout Irma Vep, French critic-turned-cinéaste Olivier Assayas was already poised for international recognition with his acclaimed, Cannes-debuted fifth feature. A neo-New Wave portrait of rebellious youth in 1972, Cold Water was hampered by wide-release setbacks when its sales company went bust, its producers went bankrupt, and its music licensing—for anthemic songs by generational troubadours Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Nico, and co.—lapsed. Now, re-released in a brilliant 4K restoration, Assayas’s little-seen gem is garnering the attention it so deserved 24 years ago. Loosely based on the director’s own adolescence, the film centres on two disaffected, self-destructive, in-love teens (newcomer Cyprien Fouquet and César-nominated Virginie Ledoyen) who make a pact to escape their stifling, suburban captivity together. Its climactic set piece, a raging party at a dilapidated chateau in the woods, is a tour de force of immersive, roving camerawork and end-of-days imagery.

“Brilliant … In a movie that hasn’t aged a day, it’s a reminder that few filmmakers inhabit the present tense as powerfully as Assayas or make the ephemeral feel so exhilarating.”

Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times
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