Les amants réguliers

The first 60 minutes of 'Regular Lovers' is highly recommended. The first long sequence depicts the street riots in Paris of 1968, and are extremely convincing in the combination of random images and sounds.

After such a promising start, it's downhill... For another 2 hours the 'story' dwells on a tedious and passionless relationship between two young artists. Unnecessarily extended shots with no action or dialogue are little more than insipid imitations of Godard's style, without his wit or intelligence. They add nothing to this particular film I'm afraid.

I love the nouvelle vague, don't get me wrong, but this film mimics 'avant-garde' techniques to end up with the equivalent of an endless Calvin Klein advertisement - bored and handsome youths lolling about, being decadent and looking so photogenic. It needs much more dynamism and emotion, either in the acting or in the editing. It might have made a tolerable 2 hour film, and perhaps more involving for this audience member.

This is one of many films I have seen at the Melbourne French Film Festival 2006. I average 100 films a year on the big screen and this is only the third film I have ever walked out on (after 75 minutes).

Yes, it looks absolutely beautiful. Cinematography and lighting are great. The characters all look authentic and you'd swear you were watching a film made 30 or more years ago. It looks like a piece of art, but for me cinema is all about telling a story. And that's where this film falls apart - all style and no substance.

There is no story, nothing compelling. It was so laborious to watch and a struggle to stay awake. There was little to differentiate this film from just looking at a book of old European photography (and that's not what I go to a cinema for, as much as I love photography). I felt that if it was like this after 75 minutes, how can I sit here for 3 hours! Obviously many others felt the same way because about 10% of the audience left before us. The only other time that I have seen a walkout like this was with The Aristocrats. This film was a wasted opportunity.

This film is probably the best new French film I've seen in this century so far. There have been some great ones including Noe's Irreversible, Green's Le Pont des Arts and Hadzihalilovic's Innocencebut none of them come close to Les Amants Reguliers' timeless glory.

The movie is a description of the events of May 68 and what followed in the wake of it and furthermore it is and update of, and a homage to, the Nouvelle Vague-movies of those days. Concerning the depiction of the riots in Paris the movie is meticulously accurate (I'm only 19 and I wasn't there myself but you know what I mean)and the almost real-time and very long riot scenes set the stage perfectly for the aftermath of the events in the streets of Paris. The riots are not glorified or beautifully photographed like the ones in Bertolucci's The Dreamers (to which the movie is comparable in many ways) instead they are filmed in grimy black and white shots courtesy of the excellent William Lubtchansky. The love story that is the movie's main concern after the riots in 68 is filmed in stunning and far less blurred shots and manages to evoke true feelings of love and adolescent confusion in the midst of the otherwise politically concerned and seemingly cold environment.

This film is a beautiful love story and it radiates through it that the director wants to depict his own experiences of those mythical late 60's which makes the film all the more compelling. But the film is also a homage to the whole Nouvelle Vague canon. Much of the dialogue evokes early Truffaut, and the length and non-action and plot less structure is reminiscent of Eustache or Rivette. There are even Godard-like verfremdung-effects with the persons looking directly into the camera and even addressing Bernardo Bertolucci directly. This film is no doubt an answer song to Bertolucci's The Dreamers and it is also a Nouvelle Vague homage but still it stands by itself as a beautiful and radiant love story.

Bottom line: This movie is incredible and if you love French cinema you shouldn't sleep on it. It may be the finest french film since Eustache's La Mamain et la Putain.

This is clearly a French film. It is about young group of idealist/revolutionary/anarchistic people. It moves very slowly. Long takes. LOng closeups. A minute or more devoted to an attempt to light a pipe full of hash/opium. A long take on how a group overturns a car and burns it. It is a black and white film. The subtitles were white, so about a third of the time they were unreadable. (Why do they do this?) I walked out after about an hour and three quarters when it became clear that this picture was going nowhere, slow. I was not the first to walk out. It was the first time I walked out of a picture in my long lifetime. (Well, maybe the second.)

This is the best French movie of the year ! I saw it twice and I found it great both times. I didn't think it boring at all even though it is very long (3 hours). I'm seventeen so I obviously didn't get to live the events of may 1968 that marked an extremely important turn in French history, but it doesn't really matter since I still really enjoyed the film. It's actually quite universal : people of my parents' age can identify to the characters and so can people my age. Garrel seems to perfectly understand young people, the way they think and the complications of love as well as the loss of illusions concerning the possibility of changing the world. Maybe that's because the character played by Louis Garrel (his son)is actually meant to represent Philippe Garrel himself. Well anyway, great movie, no action (have to be honest on that point) but so strong feelings that you can't possibly stay indifferent to it. If you're looking for a relaxing Sunday-evening movie, don't waste your time on this, you'll be disappointed. But if you like cinema, you'll like Les Amants Réguliers which is a bewitching movie close to those made in the 50's and 60's by the Nouvelle Vague artists.