Can't say I've seen a whole lot of Garrell's, but what I've seen I've liked: Le Révélateur (1968) one cold, Spring afternoon in 2004 at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, and Sauvage Innocence (2001) one equally lonely weekend at a rather pointless Winter film fest in Bergamo, 2003.
Les Amants Réguliers presents a collection of twenty-somethings: a draft-dodging poet, students, artists, the well-heeled idle rich and would-be political activists, some (but by no means all) fine young things, who spend their time hanging out, chatting, dancing, shagging and smoking illicit substances (opium, not hashish it seems), in their palatial apartments in the historical centre of Paris.
The 1968 disturbances are touched upon - there is a lengthy barricade scene at the beginning where we wait about 20 minutes for anything to actually happen - but they are not the centrepoint of the film. And neither is anything else really, a romance develops, people come and go...
There was a time in my late teens/early 20's when this kind of bored romanticism would've been appealing, but it now seems rather casual, and, well,...boring. An unexceptional film nicely photographed however, again in black and white.
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