Les baisers de secours

(Philippe Garrel, France 1989, 90 min., 35mm, French w/subtitles)

Philippe Garrel. A filmmaker comes into conflict with his wife after he refuses to cast her in the retelling of their own love story, starring himself. Garrel himself plays the filmmaker, and his family—including his wife at the time Brigitte Sy and their son Louis, as well as Garrel’s father Maurice—are the filmmaker’s family.

“Be it at dawn, or at dusk, in a surreptitious silence, someone’s hand cranks a handle without anybody around calling for ‘Action!’ The air is cold. Through his wiry mop of hair, the man looks at a woman he loves. Together they shiver. This shiver: the tingling of the cinema.” — Leos Carax