L'enfant secret (1979)

 

Director: Philippe Garrel

Screenplay: Philippe Garrel

Cast: Anne Wiazemsky as Elie; Henri de Maublanc as Jean-Baptiste; Xuan Lindenmeyer as Swann; Cécile Le Bailly as Chloé

Canon Fodder

 

I have a camera instead of a heart.

A man named Jean-Baptiste (Henri de Maublanc) meets a young woman named Elie (Anne Wiazemsky), who had a son with a male actor. By herself, Jean-Baptiste takes interest in her, and they fall in love. Influenced by his real relationship with the singer Nico, with L'enfant secret Philippe Garrel moved away from his earlier experimental films, where he would have films with no soundtrack let alone dialogue, to dialogue driven dramas.

Rather than a straight forward narrative however, L'enfant secret presents the daily turmoil of a wife and filmmaker husband, struggling in their lives. Randomness happens in this world as in real life, such as whilst abroad with Jean-Baptiste being beaten up on the street, having already had a sour moment with Elie where she left him alone. Some major events are also unavoidable, as Jean-Baptiste, working an independent filmmaker, has a mental breakdown at one point and ends up in an asylum as a result, even having shock therapy treatment which comes off as destructive as it is meant to help him before he is allowed out, continuing the narrative. Ultimately the pair will continue to fracture, partially due to his work but because they slowly drift apart. This is a bleak film without being morose or depressive however, least in the sense this is about everyone trying to cope with the world around them, be it even harmful in the end, and how life will continue even if sometimes it does not end happily. Drugs are a frequent factor in this world, be it taking too much LSD and ending up in the mental asylum, or a young working woman we briefly met who uses cocaine to get through the days. The film does not feel gloomy about the end of love either, merely that it is inevitable, and in one of the it's many lengthy takes, one is forced in contemplation sitting on a chair in a corridor. Garrel never feels miserable for the sake of miserable here.

What Garrel took from his earlier work as well, here also shooting in stark monochrome, is a very still style. In fact, he removed the moving camera shots from the likes of The Virgin's Bed (1969) and similar aesthetic flourishes, instead using very minimalistic shot compositions. He embraced dialogue fully, contrasting it with a precise aesthetic style, minimalist, which means the film still has a very slow and contemplative tone. It is, paradoxically, as difficult for me to experience as the more avant-garde films before this from Garrel were, yet still remains the most accessible in the end as, once I worked with its flow and mood, the emotional power combined with the developed directorial style is the deepest to embrace.

The influence of his previous work, which was without even sound for the likes of this, is still felt in that he has contemplative and long scenes which can become silent again.  A lengthy post asylum embrace uses this, for example, for meaning, as this has been a long separation in context, making sense throughout the film to have these moments. When music is actually used, it is good, used sparingly for moments of emotional desolation like how the central couple break up. It is an impressive piece, and this early in his career, Philippe Garrel would continue to perfect this style over his career. Working with his films, and find the virtues within them from contemplation, I have gained an admiration now for him as a filmmaker.