The Cinematheque

“One of the Nineties’ best movies.”

Nick Pinkerton, Indiewire

“Arguably Garrel’s masterpiece” (Kent Jones, Film Comment), this profoundly personal, self-immolating film à clef was made in response to the sudden death of Nico, the Warhol Superstar and Velvet Underground songstress who was Garrel’s romantic and creative partner through the 1970s. (She co-stars in his 1972 acid-trip The Inner Scar, also screening.) Based on their volatile 10-year relationship, it features Johanna ter Steege (The Vanishing) and the late Benoît Régent (Three Colours: Blue) as bohemian lovers (and Nico and Garrel surrogates) Marianne and Gérard. When their intense, interdependent, heroin-afflicted relationship falls apart, Gérard commits himself to a more stable partner (Brigitte Sy, Garrel’s then-wife), with whom he has a child. Then Marianne returns. A raw, realist work in the mold of Jean Eustache’s autobiographical fictions, the film deservedly won a Silver Lion at Venice.