In Garrel’s first effort, teenagers Pascal and Christiane run away, steal a car and land in a big house on the outskirts of town. Their games and conversations about their problems with their families alternate with interviews of people endeavouring to explain the youngsters’ behaviour. On his position in the French film industry, Garrel commented: ‘It has always been like this. Since my very first film. I did not choose to be marginalized. I was literally put outside. I remember my first film, it was a short movie I made in 1964, Les enfants désaccordées. I shot this film when I was 16 years old. It was shown on television together with another film that somebody else did. This other director was interviewed for the occasion, and when it was finally my turn, I was told they were not going to interview me since I was so different and just too original. They were not interested. That’s the way I started. I was always considered different from anybody else. So this forced me to make cinema outside of cinema, so to speak. It was only when I met Andy Warhol in 1969 – that was after he had been injured – that I realised it was not so bad to be an outsider. To work outside the established art world. In my case this is not a pose at all: I was forced to work that way. Now I’m used to it, so I don’t feel frustrated any more.’ (Cinema-Scope/Stefean Grisseman)
