Amoeba Music

Criterion released a DVD titled Philippe Garrel X 2, in which a restored copy of this film is officially released. Zeitgeist Films and The Film Desk have worked to present this collection simply because they, and others among certain film circles in France, think that Garrel's work has been widely overlooked, with the exception of Regular Lovers, which stars his son, Louis Garrel (The Dreamers)—an actor whose popularity reaches well beyond France. As a post-New Wave director, I think Garrel was trying to produce a film that cannot and will not function as entertainment, but rather a crippling and sensational piece of art. I'd say that he succeeded, but the poetic and lyrical dialogue of his characters speaks for itself.

The film is, in fact, an ode to Garrel's destructive ten-year relationship with the highly celebrated German singer, Nico. Gerard (Benoît Régent), in a sense, is Garrel and Marianne (Johanna ter Steege) is his girlfriend. Their relationship is indescribable, though they attempt, along with their close friend Martin (Yann Collette), to both define it in terms of love and happiness. Gerard defines love as something to live for, and thus something you can die of when it runs out. It is his "love conquers all" rational that irritates his girlfriend the most. Marianne believes that love is everything you can't say, and a million other things—that happiness is simply the fear of being unhappy again. And Martin, their unsocial and awkward friend who is a painter, thinks that sometimes you can be too close to a person to actually see them in their entirely. For him, one cannot reason out or prove love. Like religion, you either believe in it or you don't, but in the end, the issue is merely subjective.

When not professing his knowledge and experiences of love, Gerard is busy having affairs—sometimes with prostitutes and sometimes with lonely older women who come a few years shy of his mother's age, no doubt. Marianne knows of his endeavors with other women and is accustomed to going days without seeing him, wondering if he'll ever return. The two break up for a short time and she returns with a heroin addiction which Gerard later succumbs to. They become victims of the gloomy side of addiction and disconnection from the realities of financial stability and their friendship with Martin. Eventually Marianne ends up abandoning him and returning to Germany. Her departure leaves him in despair and neediness and, while quickly trying to replace her with other women, he meets Aline (Brigitte Sy), who tries to nurture him back into good health. Soon her efforts prove fruitful and they have a baby, but Marianne returns to France and ends up pulling him back into her nightmare, dissolving what hope Gerard has of his own future and humanity. I think it was brave and intense to cast Sy as Aline, because she is the director's wife and the mother of his son in real life.

There is no romance in this film, or at least not in the conventional sense. These characters have no function aside from tearing each other apart, and it is Garrel's focus on this aspect of relationships which makes it successful. Dinners in the film, when they are present, are bleak scenes of the cast sipping wine and gawking at each other. Most of the dialogue is very long and done in close-up shots of whoever is speaking. The lighting is the most bizarre, and perhaps my favorite part of the film. I would say about fifty percent of the shots are bathed in shadows or completely in the dark. The intentional gloominess of the film and the advancing presence of destruction hints toward their doom and troubled souls better than any clichéd violin could do. The performances, especially of Johanna ter Steege, are as underplayed and demanding as the film. By lacking theatrics and emphasizing loneliness, the entire cast blends well and fills each frame with people you'd like to console, if not confide in. I Can No Longer Hear the Guitar is haunting and fulfilling, for anyone who can marvel at how much they've endured, and yet how little they really understand.