Le Lit de la vierge (1969)

Philippe Garrel’s 1969 feature La lit de la vierge (The Virgin’s Bed) represents a spiritual and thematic cousin to his 2005 film The Regular Lovers; whereas the latter revisits the tumultuous Parisian events of May 1968 over 35 years later, and carefully reconstructs those days with docudrama technique, Garrel and his cast and crew of shot La lit in the summer of ’68 (reportedly under the influence of acid and without a script), just a few months after the bouleversement of the riots. In that picture, the filmmakers adapt the Biblical story of Jesus very loosely and non-narratively, using Christ as a metaphoric symbol of the late ’60s protest movement – the “ultimate hippie.” The picture also reflects the filmmakers’ self-mythologies of existing and functioning as a “religious sect.” Pierre Clementi plays Jesus; Zouzou portrays both the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene.