Frontier of the Dawn (2008)
(La frontière de l’aube, Philippe Garrel, France 2008, 106 min., 35mm, French w/subtitles)
Philippe Garrel. A young photographer (Louis Garrel, the director’s son) ends his affair with tempestuous actor Carole (Laura Smet) and moves on to the promise of domestic peace with the more even-tempered Eve (Clémentine Poidatz). As in all of Garrel’s work, the film is haunted by the dead—here, in its most visible incarnation.
“Serious movies that insist on their own seriousness almost always face a difficult reception, whether they are intellectual puzzles or, like Frontier of the Dawn, romantic cries from the heart. . . . [Garrel] transforms a private reverie into a public sacrament, invokes the eternal, risks absurdity, invites derision, seduces, shocks, transcends.” — Manohla Dargis