“Philippe Garrel is the proverbial underrated genius. He is the closest thing to a poet functioning today in French cinema. J’entends plus la guitare is possibly his masterpiece.” -Olivier Assayas

One of cinema’s great masters of doomed romance, Philippe Garrel remains underappreciated in the U.S. His best films craft moments of emotional texture as rich as his naturally lit frames, with unforgettably vivid close-ups of his actors, who ebb between torrid affection and a radiant torpor. One of the few films he made in color, J’entends plus la guitare is one of the finest examples of his intuitive poetic approach and one of his most personal, based on his long-term affair with singer-songwriter Nico. Bohemian couple Marianne (Johanna ter Steege, THE VANISHING) and Gerard (Benoît Régent) spend vacation on the Amalfi coast with friends (Yann Collette and Mireille Perrier). But soon enough, they break up; in Paris, they get back together, with heroin in the mix; the years pass. Stark and unsentimental, the film is a stunning fugue, built on the vagaries of a life lived with betrayal and heartbreak. In French with English subtitles.

“Raw, rueful, and piercingly alert, a film of tremendous formal instinct and cogent human truth.” -The Village Voice

“Garrel’s most radical attempt at confessional melodrama… [he] balances a hypnotic romanticism with the frightening lurch of unsteady emotions.” -Richard Brody, The New Yorker

“Pursues its themes with the intuitive freedom of a memoir or a poem, rather than conventional narrative logic… Elusive and haunting.” -A.O Scott, The New York Times