Two Films by Philippe Garrel

 

The Virgin's Bed (1969)

Director: Philippe Garrel

Screenplay: Philippe Garrel

Cast: Zouzou as Marie / Marie Magdalène; Pierre Clémenti as Jesus; Tina Aumont as the Prisoner; Philippe Garrel as the Apostle; Jean-Pierre Kalfon as the Horseman

An Abstract Candidate

 

[Sung] Young Jesus goes to school carrying his cross under his shoulder.

Made after Le Révélateur (1968), but in sound, The Virgin's Bed imagines Jesus, already a grown man, born to a mortal woman and a God who he cries to about seeing the "shithole" below, his mother Marie scolding him for cursing, both of them on a beach on a bed, one which will return as a moving vehicle the camera and the characters ride on. Contrary to what you would presume from that description, this is not necessarily a blasphemous film, instead coming off as the most traditionally unconventional film in Philippe Garrel's filmography at this point.

Set in a vague non-time, the modern day in places but everyone dressed as still in old Nazareth, as psychedelic rock guitar jams score over the monochrome images, you feel sympathy for Jesus in the first hour of the film, or at least I did. This is a depressed Jesus who, even with a megaphone, is unable to talk or be listened to by anyone, only getting an apostle later who is the director himself. Even shouting "I am the saviour!" leads nowhere, as no on even opens a gate for him. Far from blasphemous, it is imagining Jesus Christ, with a crown of thorns, having to contemplate our era. Air raid sirens are heard, and gun fire and war is heard outside in the far distance. Shot in stark (beautiful) black and white, this reflects a very different world for the Christian figure to exist in, the film of the sixties but with a meaningful idea, even if played for moments of humour, of what the figure means if He came to a period like then.

This would have been fascinating if the film had stayed like this in tone. The Virgin Mary is now the disappointed mother who irons his shirts, but Mary Madeleine (or her stand-in) is there for him still, when he is cold and hungry, who exchanges sexual pleasures for stones but eventually bonds with him and joins him. A song, almost sounding like Nico (who Garrel dated) is heard at one point as he wanders outside in despair, and it is haunting. Far from feeling like an anti-Christian film, it feels, however, a film, regardless of Garrel's beliefs at the time, where he has a Jesus a figure out of time and imagines what His place would be in the then-current world.

Things take a left term when Jesus kills his mother, and this is not a film with a clear narrative more so afterwards, with Jesus wondering with a mysterious box onwards into the world. I admit to loving the "surreal" films of this era, the sixties and the seventies, even those which meandered like this one, but here, there would have been a greater interest if this had focused on its initial premise. Even when this tries to stray back to this, such as leading to a execution area in a cave with firing squads, where Madeleine ends up with, it feels unfocused to a detriment.

It definitely feels a strange outlier to Philippe Garrel, one of the few films too where there is a moving camera and long panning shots as well as he was clearly finding his technical side as well. This is a curiosity to see, but it does at the same time feel like an awkward match for a director, having seen other films from this era, who grew with L'enfant secret (1979), the start of his real career trajectory. This is a compelling piece - there is a striking image, with Jesus facing the camera on a crucifix, at night on the beach - but as with many auteurs, many have weird one-offs and dead ends in their career, and The Virgin's Bed is likely Philippe Garrel's. They are divisive creations, expressing flaws or their creator's personality even by accident. Here it is thankfully just a reveal that Garrel prodded at interesting ideas even here but, with the more intimate aspects with a depressed and human Jesus, he found more appeal and worth in drama and dealing with emotions than the surreal.

Abstract Spectrum: Surreal

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None

*****

Les hautes solitudes (1974)

Director: Philippe Garrel

Cast: Jean Seberg; Nico; Tina Aumont; Laurent Terzieff

An Abstract Candidate

 

Les hautes Solitudes was the first Philippe Garrel film I saw, on a fuzzy VHS rip, and had a very negative reaction to. My younger self was not prepared for a film like this, so I am not surprised I once gave this a one out of five stars.

Another of the films with neither diegetic or non-diegetic sound, this feels closer to an art installation, snapshots of figures like Nico and Jean Seberg, a figure in cinema's history either portrayed in the shadow of Breathless (1960), her most iconic role, or her early death. She was a figure with a history of tragedy, mental illness and being affectively hounded by the FBI for her relations with the Black Panthers. This film for many is going to be more important in the context of Seberg - post Breathless, her career was halted greatly, is obscure with questionable sounding films, and effectively with her in exile from the United States baring occasional films like Airport (1970).

Everyone though - almost all women among the figures onscreen - are filmed in silence, all in the point of melancholia, the world around them mostly in close-up, dank and shrouded in darkness. It does feel like one is breathing in despair in the close-in or close-up shots. However, and whilst I have grown to now see the film's virtues, this is one case where a lack of sound personally distracts from the point even if the structure has incredible virtues. This is likely as much me as a viewer, feeling disconnect by this technical decision, but it does force one arms length too, where someone onscreen is actually crying in great grief, without previous context and without sound, to hear her voice, to which to care for her.

Les hautes Solitudes is not a film to express fully in text because it strips moving images down to basic images, human figures as figures, you need to see and think of in context to seeing them. It is a difficult film, and one whilst I admire feels "tough" and even obscure at times. It is a work I have gained finally an admiration for, but it strips away perceived markers in mainstream cinema of what it should present, something which would be installation art nowadays as mentioned, and could be allowed to breath if able to be seen constantly in such an environment. My coldness is that, to empathise with others, I perceive the world through more than my eyes and vision, whilst here it is a challenge to how one perceived another person with just the eyes, in itself a successful one but also one which raises questions of itself, as these moving portraits of people in silence, in their quietest and even bleakest moments, are cut off (for the most part) from outside and aspects within this that would increase emotional connection. Maybe that was a point, but Jean Seberg in particular offers this uneasy disconnect in her involvement as, with accidental prophecy, this forecast her own death in the closing images, perceived as suicide. Reality, and real history, forces this piece to have emotional relevance, but by itself, Les hautes Solitude is merely a reflection of emotion which is an issue to debate.

It is, without a doubt, a truly compelling piece, once which without trivialising it, went past in viewing easily for me in terms of time, showing how far I have come as a viewer of these films. It is truly abstract, but sometimes in experimenting with the visual form, you have to ask whether the results will cause one to question the film's purpose. This is a work I would likely grow even more appreciative of, but it is a film where it causes one to question its decisions as well.

Abstract Spectrum: Avant-Garde/Contempative

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): Medium