Part of the 2023 French Film Series:
L’Enfant secret
(Philippe Garrel, 1982, 95 min, France, French with English subtitles, DCP)
Preceded by: Actua 1
(Philippe Garrel, 1968, 6 min, France, French with English subtitles, DCP)
— Introduced by Benjamin Crais (Literature). Q&A to follow screening.
After the generational upheaval of May ’68 and its aftermath, and the personal upheavals of addiction, depression, shock therapy, and the end of a life-defining relationship with Nico, Philippe Garrel made L’Enfant secret: an elemental, oneiric film about two damaged lovers. Primordial and intimate, L’Enfant secret seems to emanate directly from the molten white core of a life and of film: one feels, Adrian Martin wrote, “that one is attending, like a midwife, the birth of cinema.” Preceded by Garrel’s recently rediscovered and restored short, Actua 1, shot in the heat of May ’68.
–Winner of the 1982 Prix Jean Vigo
“It seems to me one of the greatest and most monumental works in cinema history.” – Adrian Martin
“Anyone versed in L’Enfant secret through bootleg copies will weep for joy upon seeing the new restoration, which makes this milestone of post-French New Wave cinema finally play as it should: a lucid dream.” – Screen Slate
“It is a singular event in Garrel’s oeuvre, a quietly devastating film of almost unbearable alternations between tenderness and the harshest truths, in which the artist’s realization of his ability to communicate with the world results in a windblown clarity, like clouds pushing through the sky after a storm.” – Kent Jones
Screen/Society screenings are free and open to the public. (COVID-19 Info)
