François is 22. He loses interest in his surroundings, stops going to work and withdraws more and more from his partner, his parents and friends as his heroin addiction develops. ABSENCES RÉPÉTÉES is a dreamily dark film that makes various allusions to Louis Malle’s LE FEU FOLLET, which was made 10 years previously. Atmospherically dense and carried by the title song, sung by Jeanne Moreau, and François’ remark “I thought life was a poem” which runs through it like a leitmotif, the film is also an idiosyncratic and melancholy portrait of Paris in the early 1970s.
(Arsenal Kino)