Regular Lovers: "Dreamers" of a Different Sort

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ***

It would appear, from much of the critical response to Philippe Garrel's Regular Lovers, that one must either love it, while despising Bertolucci's The Dreamers--or vice versa. Forget this sort of either/or nonsense: There is no reason not to appreciate both films, the subject matter of which is the French student revolution of the late 1960s, and some of the young people involved. The Italian version is rich, colorful, highly sexual and perverse--concentrating on a sophisticated French siblings who seduce a somewhat naïve American student. Garrel's take is starker, realistic (if oddly chaste) and much longer. The Bertolucci comes in at just under two hours; Garrel's is two minutes short of three. Considering the many times the director holds his camera on a character--watching and waiting--for my money, the film could have dropped at least half an hour and suffered no great loss.

But Garrel's insistence on forcing the viewer to stay with his characters thru moments of intense sadness or meditation has a semi-pay-off. You sense more acutely how the person is suffering and thinking, but then somewhere along the way, you also realize that you have now seen, felt and learned all the possible lessons, and...can we move on, please? As director/co-writer, Garrel concentrates on the non-growing-up of student/would-be-poet/draft dodger (played by his son, Louis Garrel) and the romance that blooms between him and a young woman sculptor (a terrific performance by Clotilde Hesme).

Shot in high-contrast black and white by cinematographer William Lubtchansky, the film often has a "look" (particularly during the students-run-amok sequences) that seems to combine the French Revolution with Night of the Living Dead. (This is not perhaps what the filmmakers intended, but it is certainly interesting.) Along the way, the film significantly, and believably, explores politics, philosophy, family, revolution, class, and love. The manner in which Ms. Hesme's character levels with Garrel's about her attraction to other men seems right for both the period and the people involved. The young Garrel, who tends to play passive characters (Ma Mere, Inside Paris and, interestingly, in The Dreamers) here plays the most passive of them all. You may find yourself with the desire to kick him in the butt now and again or yell "Grow up! Face it! Move On!" But then it is suddenly over.

While you’ll probably side more strongly than I with one camp or the other regarding the merits of Regular Lovers, give it a try. I enjoyed The Dreamers a good deal more, but am still glad I lasted out Garrel's movie. He actually gives a nod to his Italian counterpart, midway through, as Hesme breaks the fourth wall (the only time in the movie: a big mistake, I think) and asks another character if he has seen Before the Revolution. Then she stares into the camera and says: "Bertolucci."