In the Shadow of Women

Philippe Garrel once more delves into the emotional currents of male/female relationships in his beautifully modulated new film. Pierre (Stanilas Merhar) and his wife Manon (Clotilde Courau) have a close and slightly hermetic partnership, working on documentary projects together where he directs and she edits. Manon herself suggests to a girlfriend that she has perhaps subsumed her own life for her husband. A more serious fault line between the two emerges when Pierre meets Elizabeth (Lena Paugam), an archivist working in the production house where the couple is working on their latest project. Expertly shifting between these three primary characters, In the Shadow of Women prismatically reveals the manifold sides of this romantic quandary, with an omniscient voiceover narration (by the director’s son, Louis Garrel) providing further illumination. Evocatively shot in black and white like most of his work, Garrel’s latest is a beautiful miniature, a reflective and moving exploration of life, love and filmmaking.