Home video debut for Philippe Garrel's leisurely, laughable THE SALT OF TEARS

The relationship that a callow, manipulative young man named Luc develops with three different young women provides most of the content for THE SALT OF TEARS, the latest film from Philippe Garrel (shown below), a French filmmaker whose sensibility seems forever stuck back in the 1960s even when, as here, he's desperately trying to come to terms with life and love in the 21st Century. 

Motherless for most of his life, Luc does have a bond with his father (he's followed Dad's line of work), but seems to gravitate toward clingy, uncertain young women.

A fairly prolific filmmaker, M. Garrel already has 37 directorial credits and 32 for writing. For my taste, his movies have always remained in the (at best) "iffy" category. This one doesn't begin to achieve even that level.

Here, he relies on narration to fill in too many of the blanks --  from history and character to what his hero, Luc, is thinking and feeling. 

Garrel tells instead of shows -- except when he does both, in far too tiresome a fashion. Further, that narration too often comes through as both pretentious and empty.

Luc is played by the handsome newcomer Logann Antuofermo (above, left), whom we'll probably see again under better circumstances, while two of the three women are portrayed by Louise Chevillotte (above, right), whose needy, clingy character seems clearly responsible for Luc's learning how to "finger" so very well, and

Oulaya Amamra (above, right), who plays the young woman Luc accosts at a bus stop, finagling his way into her affection (and perhaps into her womb: Our boy proves very fertile). These two characters seem like hold-overs from another age, and even the faintest feminist is likely to cringe while watching them. ("You're the one who matters, Luc!" implores one of these, when it is already too clear that he neither does nor should.)

The third woman, Betsy, however, is quite another matter: self-supporting and self-sufficient, too. At least until we discover she needs to be fucking two men -- one by day, the other by night -- in order to be really satisfied. As played by Souheila Yacoub (above, right), Betsy helps brings the movie to some life during its final third.

Far too leisurely paced and predictable, The Salt of Tears is probably most embarrassing when it asks us to feel so sorry for poor Luc because he can't afford to eat lunch out with his classmates. And that narration grows ever more self-serving, pompous and finally very nearly as stupid as seems our asinine hero -- whose thought and action (via that narration, of course) regarding his father at film's end may very likely draw your biggest guffaw. (That's André Wilms, above, as Luc's dad.) 

There is an excellent dance scene at a club, due to its being shot at enough distance to allow us to see and enjoy the choreography, while the focus is on the faces as well as the bodies of the participants. The cinematography (by Renato Berta, of Fairytale) is also very fine. Otherwise, The Salt of Tears is mostly flatfooted nonsense.

From Distrib Films US (distributed here in the U.S. via Icarus Home Video) and running 101 minutes, the movie hit home video on DVD at the end of last month and is available now. Click here and/or here for more information.

IN THE SHADOW OF WOMEN, indeed! Philippe Garrel's tale of two relationships opens

What with the demise of Alain Resnais (who died last year at age 91), the title of grand old man of French cinema could easily go to Philippe Garrel (if not André Téchiné). All three have decades of movies to their credit and are quintessentially French in their refusal to over-explicate as they deal with the various relationships their movies tackle. But while Téchiné and Resnais spread their nets of theme and content far and wide, M. Garrel has been content to traverse basically the same landscape: the difficulties of love between a man and a woman (more often a man and women). The decade in which the film takes place may change, but much else remains the same. Yet those of us who appreciate Garrel's work (TrustMovies admits to arriving at this point slowly and late), these similarities seem of little consequence. His latest, IN THE SHADOW OF WOMEN, is a case in post.

This director and co-writer (with Caroline Deruas, Arlette Langmann and Jean-Claude Carrière) also works more in black-and-white than in color, and for those of us who love this medium, the capture of glistening greys, darks and lights is about as sumptuous as can be imagined (the cinema-tographer this time around is Renato Berta, and his results are exquisite). Also -- and wisely, I think -- for his leading man, the director has chosen someone other than his son, Louis, whom he often uses. Instead it's that interesting, attractive and very low-key actor Stanislas Merhar, who made an unforgettable film debut back in 1997 in Anne Fontaine's Dry Cleaning.

As good as is M. Merhar (above) is as the lead character, Pierre, it's the women here who steal the show, particularly Clotilde Courau (below, right), as Merhar's partner in both love and work. (The pair are documen-tarians who are currently making a film about an old man who was a French resistance fighter back in WWII.) As is often true of men (French or otherwise), Pierre is rather self-satisfied, narcissistic and not particularly giving of his time or energy. When another attractive and available woman appears on the scene, he is more than ready to indulge himself.

How Garrel takes the pulse of this initial relationship, as well as the new one (newcomer Lena Paugam, below, plays "the other woman"), proves telling and on-the-mark. Both women are smarter, and more "in control" than their man. They are also more honest -- even if, yes, they're guilty of their own spying and/or infidelity.

How all this plays out, including the documentary about the resistance fighter, is charming, thoughtful and finally even a little moving. Creativity and passion are given their due, and Garrel's classic style -- an on-and-off narration (voiced by Louis Garrel) fills in some of the narrative/character blanks -- may have you wondering in just what decade all this is taking place. When a cell phone appears, you know you're in modern times.

Mostly, though, In the Shadow of Women is so beautifully filmed that you can simply sit back and luxuriate in its splendor. After being invited last year into the NY Film Festival, the movie -- from Distrib Films and running a mere 73 minutes -- opens theatrically in New York City this Friday, January 15, at both the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the IFC Center.

Further playdates, according to the distributor's website, are shown below:

1/18/2016 Bear Tooth Theatrepub Anchorage, AK

1/21/2016 Time & Space Hudson, NY

1/22/2016 Jacob Burns Film Center Pleasantville, NY

1/22/2016 Laemmle’s Pasadena Playhouse Los Angeles, CA

1/29/2016 The Royal – Laemmle Theatres Los Angeles, CA

1/29/2016 2/5/2016 Miami Beach Cinematheque Miami Beach, FL

2/12/2016 The Screen Santa Fe, NM

2/14/2016 Northwest Film Forum Seattle, WA

2/13/2016 2/13/2016 George Eastman House Rochester NY

2/21/2016 The Public Cinema Darren Hughes Knoxville, TN

2/25/2016 3/2/2016 Cable Car Cinema

         --Providence French Festival Providence, RI

4/15/2016 4/17/2016 Sonoma Film Institute Rohnert Park, CA

Does JEALOUSY find Philippe Garrel in a more thoughtful, maybe even positive mood?

In addition to JEALOUSY,  the new movie from Philippe Garrel opening this week, TrustMovies has seen only four other of this famous Frenchman's films: his segment of Paris par vu..., Night Wind, Regular Lovers and The Frontier of Dawn (possibly one of the silliest titles in movie history). M Garrel is on record in the July/August 2014 issue of Film Comment as noting that the title of his latest film is not illustrative. Thank you. That helps, because, really, it seems that no one in Jealousy is in the least jealous of anyone else. This is, in fact, one of the oddly enjoyable things about the movie: How its characters move through life with an almost amazing lack of rancour, despite break-ups and other major problems concerning life, love and work.

If the movie seems beautifully alive yet oddly distant, this may be because its maker (pictured left), a 66-year-old man, is tackling relatively young people today but from an aged perspective that seems, by turns, thoughtful, quiet and simply removed from the agitation that is "youth." As both lead actors -- the filmmaker's son Louis Garrel and Anna Mouglalis -- shown on poster above and in the photos below -- are in their 30s, the "agitation that is middle age" might be more appropriate. Whatever. The bottom line is that Jealousy offers a kind of split perspective, as events occur that ought to cause conster-nation and yet the characters take them with the kind of philosophical stride reserved for the wisdom of age.

This allows us to identify with both generations, to see what is going on but not grow particularly alarmed by it all. Events here include everything from a husband and father leaving his family to his paramour betraying both him and his philosophy about the "purity" of the acting profession (which probably mirrors to a great extent the philosophy of the elder Garrel). That ever-present fight of family vs freedom is front and center once again.

Garrel père films in bits and pieces (and in lustrous black-and-white, with cinemtography by the great Willy Kurant), all of them leading from that initial scene in which Garrel fils moves out and begins his new life, while trying to still include his daughter (played by the adorable and extremely winning Olga Milshtein, shown above and below). Finally, these pieces produce a kind of mosaic of conventions, attitudes and culture. Jealousy is certainly not a great film (none of Garrel's are), but it is an interesting one, made by a filmmaker, the work of whom buffs will probably want to know. His new film is as good a place to start as any.

From Distrib Films and running a bare 77 minutes, Jealousy opens this Friday, August 15, here in New York City at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, and the following Friday, August 22, in the Los Angeles area at three Laemmle theaters: the Royal, Playhouse 7 and Town Center 5. In the weeks and months to come, it will play venues around the country. Click here and scroll down to see all currently scheduled playdates, with cities and theaters.