Director: Philippe Garrel | France | Fiction | 2013 | 77 mins
Film source: Distribfilm
Like the best films of the French New Wave, Philippe Garrel’s Jealousy pays homage to its cinematic forefathers while also making movies seem new again and full of endless possibilities. Garrel literally came of age during the New Wave (he made his first short film in 1964, at age 16), and Jealousy contains subtle tips of the cap to François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard and Jean Eustache. But it’s also a highly personal work, starring his son, Louis Garrel, as an aimless young actor who leaves the mother of their 8-year-old daughter for an equally adrift actress, played with subtle detachment by Anna Mouglalis. With luminous black-and-white cinematography by Willy Kurant (who shot Godard’s 1966 masterpiece Masculin Féminin), Jealousy examines with a gently comedic touch the momentary thrills and complicated consequences of romantic longing and infidelity.