FilmNewYork's blog

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Friday, May 11------The BAMcinematek, located at the Rose Cinemas at downtown Brooklyn's estimable Brooklyn Academy of Music, is showcasing the work of three generations of France's most prolific acting and directing dynasties. GENERATION GARREL offers the work of veteran director Phillipe Garrel, a kind of Gallic version of American director John Cassavettes, and his father Maurice Garrel and son Louis Garrel, both accomplished actors. Following BAM's Philippe Garrel retrospective in August 2005, this series puts all three Garrels in the spotlight. 

[img_assist|nid=4421|title=|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=107|height=150]The 23-year-old Louis Garrel opens the program with a sneak preview of his latest film, DANS PARIS, by the promising young director Christophe Honoré (whose 2004 MA MERE, also starring Louis Garrell, plays in the series). Garrell, who is one of France's hottest young actors, is also represented in his breakthrough role as an amoral young man in Paris during the summer of 1968 in Bernando Bertolucci's THE LOVERS and father Phillippe Garrel's REGULAR LOVERS. [img_assist|nid=4422|title=|desc=|link=node|align=right|width=100|height=150]

The family's elder statesman, 84-year-old Maurice Garrel is featured in two of his son's films: the 1983 film LIBERTE, LA NUIT, in which he stars as an aging activist caught up in the protests surrounding the Algerian war, and WILD INNOCENCE (2001), in which he plays the father of a struggling filmmaker (nice casting). The entire Garrell clan, including Louis’s mother, the actress Brigitte Sy, turn up in EMERGENCY KISSES (1988), an autobiographical film directed by Phillippe Garrell, in which he stars as a director  who is making....an autobiographical film. The line between film fantasy and behind-the-scenes reality has never been so confusing. Viva Les Garrels!! BAM website: www.bam.org

Sandy Mandelberger, Film New York Editor