Les baisers de secours

Les baisers de secours (1989) was co-written and directed by Philippe Garrel. The cast stars Garrel as himself, and his partner in real-life, Brigitte Sy, as Jeanne, who, in the movie is his wife.

The problem--in the movie--is that Philippe wants to cast himself as a film director, which is fair enough. However, he wants to cast another woman actor as his movie wife. Naturally, Sy wants that role. The rest of the plot follows from this interesting situation.

In the movie, there's a good deal of back-and-forth about this, naturally. Carrel's choice may reflect his concept of the film-within-a film that he is making, or it may reflect his real life decisions about his personal life.

There are long discussions in the movie. I've been to France, but I don't speak French, so I can't say whether the French actually spend these long hours discussing any given subject. This wasn't a boring film, but you had to be patient enough to follow the subtitles carefully so you could understand where all this conversation was headed.

This film will work well on the small screen.

P.S. Directors often cast family members in their films, but Carrel does this more than any director I know. Both his real-life son and his real-life father play his son and his father in the movie.