Product Details

• Actors: Louis Garrel, Clotilde Hesme, Julien Lucas, Eric Rulliat, Nicolas Bridet
• Format: Black & White, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled
• Language: French
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Zeitgeist Films
• DVD Release Date: May 22, 2007
• Run Time: 175 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000MTFDH4
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #122,302 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Regular Lovers" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Winner of numerous international awards and garnering universal acclaim worldwide, Philippe Garrel's Regular Lovers (Les Amants réguliers) is a rapturous paean to France's near-revolution of May '68 and its aftermath. Shooting in lustrous black and white, Garrel and legendary cinematographer William Lubtchansky capture the era's ambiance with an opulent intimacy that suggests an apocryphal French New Wave opus, while sparring overtly with Bernardo Bertolucci's controversial The Dreamers. Leading a young cast who look and act uncannily period-perfect, the director's son Louis Garrel (The Dreamers, Dans Paris, Ma Mère) confirms himself as one of the hottest new French performers of the moment. Garrel the younger plays François, a student-slash-poet grappling with the tumult--and the doomed romance--of the infamous Parisian riots. After the movement implodes, everyday reality hits with a crash: François is hauled in for draft-dodging, falls in love with aloof sculptor Lilie (Clotilde Hesme), while the well-heeled Antoine can only pass the opium pipe. Regular Lovers is a stunning re-imagining of a misunderstood "golden" age, painstakingly crafted with a combination of bitter nostalgia and an austere yet romantic vision of Paris by night and day.

SPECIAL FEATURES:
- Stunning new transfer, in the film's original full screen theatrical aspect ratio
- Venice Film Festival Press Conference with director Philippe Garrel, stars Louis Garrel and Clotilde Hesme and producer Gilles Sandoz
- Philippe Garrel filmography
- French theatrical trailer
- Optional English subtitles
- Extensive new essay by film critic Kent Jones

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Confirms Louis Garrel as a great actor., March 6, 2007

By 

Berlinale (NYC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Regular Lovers (DVD)

I recently saw this at the Cinema Village in NYC and was stunned by this evocative, opium infused, gorgeous film.

Shot in stark black and white by the great William Lubtchansky, the film is a vivid evocation of a misunderstood golden age when young people thought they could change the world merely by taking to the streets. It's a powerful antidote to the insipid, uninspired THE DREAMERS, the film it's often compared to. A very personal Proustian reminiscence and a very public conjuring of ghosts, the film is simultaneously celebratory and melancholic. Given the right frame of mind, it's absolutely rapturous.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Tried to like it., May 27, 2010

By 

John Romeo (tampa, florida) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Regular Lovers (DVD)

It was better on the second viewing, but... Although it has some lovely moments, parts one and two are so long that one cannot sustain interest without heroic effort. As one reviewer already pointed out -how many long hashish smoking scenes do we need? As for the street battles, I actually found those in The Dreamers more gripping than the interminable ones shot in this film. For me, the girl (Clotilde Hesme) and not Louis Garrel (who I thought only brilliant in the scene when she moves on) is really the reason to invest any time and effort in this film. Her beauty and acting are perfect and the only character who touched me emotionally whenever she was on the screen. The black and white cinematography is mostly gorgeous, but the Bergmanesque ending was totally lost on me. Fellini would have been a better choice!

8 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Kids Those Days, February 7, 2007

By 

Chris Roberts "Chris Roberts" (Astoria, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Regular Lovers (DVD)

It is nearly impossible to discuss this film without referencing Bernardo Bertolucci's "The Dreamers" as they both take place during the students revolt in Paris back in 1968. "Regular Lovers," while not nearly as good, does have a lot going for it, most of all credibility and teeth. Filmed in black and white the cinematic gloss found of "The Dreamers" has been stripped off to reveal a period of anxiety and fear along with hope and love. This is certainly not a tale of rich kids prancing around Daddy's penthouse while reality transpires outside their bubble. These kids take their fight seriously. Cars are torched, cops are hated, and murder by Molotov Cocktail is always within arms reach. But more than that director Philippe Garrel wants you to think about what comes after revolution as it never lasts forever. According to him you can either sell out and join the middle class or you can die. And at least if you die you can be considered just.

The early part of the film does focus on the day to day of fighting a violent battle for change. The main point of contention seems to be a government that tries to coerce its young people into military service and throw those in jail who do not fall in line and become killers. Garrel is on the right side but his portrayal of both sides is a little. . .well. . .black and white. The police are fascists and the revolutionaries are pacifist poets. As the story moves along though these two icons begin to bleed into one another. And as the youthful flames of anger cool with age suddenly the poet and the fascist find themselves having a conversation about art. Kids, who earlier in the movie would never again talk to a person who had been smeared with the tag "a bourgeois," would begin taking on responsibilities that looked quite bourgeois. Romance, perhaps the ultimate bourgeois indulgence, is what is most to blame for the end of the revolution here. And I guess the real question remains: Was it all inevitable? They are started off with the most noble of intentions, but eventually human nature takes over. Free love morphs into ownership, not liking work morphs into not liking starvation.

If all these new urges blindside our characters (who I could never connect to) they can hardly be blamed for not trying. They wanted to feel good so if they had to do drugs or have sex or overthrow a government to do so then oh well. Far better that than those religious zealots who work so hard just to deprive people from feeling good. The film as a whole was not that good though. Way overlong at three hours it kept my attention for maybe two. But subtract the plethora of scenes that involved nothing more than opium smoking and you might have a winner on your hands. And don't think Gerrel didn't have "The Dreamers" on his mind when he made this. Throughout the film there are only two lines that are spoken with the character looking directly into the camera. The first, "Bernardo Bertolucci." So he called out a master and lost a duel, can't blame a guy fro trying. **1/4