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Mubi's retrospective The Parallel Worlds of Olivier Assayas is showing May 3 – June 11, 2019 in the United States.Cold WaterWhen a filmmaker’s body of work is as prolific as it is varied, the paths to profile split two: the explanatory chronology that threads together A-to-b episodes of a life, and the thematic retrofit that groups one film with an unsuspecting other. But both are really about the same, hopeful thing: that the right arrangement of themes and biographic detail will yield some incandescent truth about their practice. With Olivier Assayas, the truths are dropped generously in correspondence—“Cinema has to be light,” he has told Kent Jones, and later, Film Comment1—always too articulate and discerning an interviewee to not betray his past as a writer and (reluctant) critic at Cahiers du cinéma, then helmed by Serge Daney and Toubiana. Assayas is, in fact, generous enough to have written a memoir,...

Stars: Virginie Ledoyen, Cyprien Fouquet, Jean-Pierre Darroussin, László Szabó, Smaïl Mekki | Written and Directed by Olivier Assayas

This 1994 film from Olivier Assayas (known recently for Clouds of Sils Maria and Personal Shopper) ends ambiguously, with a blank piece of paper. It’s an image that aptly sums up this intriguing yet frustrating film as a whole: a work of countless questions and precious few answers, as esoteric as something from the 1970s period of its setting. It’s like a Michelangelo Antonioni art piece, except shot by John Cassavetes. If we’re meant to come away feeling as ill-informed as its teenage antiheroes then I guess Cold Water has succeeded as art.

The production design and the film stock produces a stunning evocation of the early ‘70s. We’re never told the time period explicitly – we just know. Early on, Assayas shoots with handheld immediacy, employing close-ups and deliberately awkward framing,...

Every generation loves a good revolution—stories of marches, graffiti, posters and picketings that changed the world. 2018 marks the 50th anniversary of the May 1968 protests in France: student protests against capitalism, American imperialism, and the general functioning of Charles De Gaulle’s government, that gained momentum when millions of striking workers joined the protests and successfully managed to bring the French economy to a standstill. Nostalgia seekers talk about the exuberance, the exhilaration, and the excitement of it all. Olivier Assayas, who grew up in the 70s, living through the aftermath of May ’68, is not one of them.In 1994, Assayas made L'eau froide (Cold Water) for the TV series Tous les garçons et les filles de leur âge, wherein every participating filmmaker—a list that included Chantal Akerman and Claire Denis, among others—was asked to make a film about their adolescent years using the music they listened to back then.

Tomorrow we’ll find out if Olivier Assayas’ “full-blown comedy” Non Fiction, starring Juliette Binoche, will be part of the Cannes competition line-up, but it’s not the only announcement related to the French auteur that we’re getting this week. If one became acquainted with him in recent years with Personal Shopper and Clouds of Sils Maria, you’ll be pleased to know there’s a wealth of early films from the director to be discovered, and one of them has been given a 4K restoration.

Cold Water, his 1994 film about a pair of teenagers in Paris in the early ’70s, will enjoy a theatrical run starting later this month followed by a likely release on The Criterion Collection. In anticipation of the beautiful-looking restoration, Janus Films have released a new trailer and poster, both of which can be viewed below. For more from Assayas, read our in-depth interviews...

NEW YORK -- Olivier Assayas' "Cold Water" is yet another exploration of teenage angst, this time set in Paris in 1972. There is no discernible reason for the film to be set in the past, except for the fact that it allows for some cool songs by the likes of Leonard Cohen (very popular in soundtracks these days), Bob Dylan and Alice Cooper.

The skimpy plot concerns two alienated youths, Christine (Virginie Ledoyen) and Gilles (Cyprien Fouquet), who, as usual for films of this type, have trouble with their parents. Gilles must cope with an overprotective father, while Christine's mother and her stepfather are, gasp, Scientologists. In order to cope, the kids resort to shoplifting, which they don't do well, and playing around with explosives, which were probably not difficult to procure in Paris in the 1970s. Ultimately, they run away together, leading to a melodramatic and unconvincing finale.

Audience sympathy is unlikely as these are two of the most sullen, uncommunicative and generally boring teenagers to hit the screen in a long time. The film proper is short on plot, which is practically nonexistent, and long on atmosphere. There's more insight into the teenage condition in any episode of "My So-Called Life".

The directing takes its usual cues from the New Wave and is filled with a jazzy pretentiousness that never fails to call attention to itself. The performers do not manage to connect us with the material, although Ledoyen has a pouty sullenness that has apparently made her the rage in France.

COLD WATER

Presented by IMA Films

Director Olivier Assayas

Producers George Benayoun, Paul Rozenberg

Associate Producer Chantal Poupaud

Executive Producers-IMA Francoise Guglielmi, Elisabeth Deviosse

Executive Producer-SFPP Yannick Casanova

Director of Photography Denis Lenoir

Editor Luc Barnier

Cast:

Christine Virginie Ledoyen

Gilles Cyprien Fouquet

Gilles' father Laszlo Szabo

Inspector Jean-Pierre Darroussin

Christine's mother Dominique Faysse

Running time -- 92 minutes

(c) The Hollywood Reporter...