In the Shadow of Women (France/Switzerland)  

Probably the most efficiently told story at this year’s VIFF, this 73-minute, black-and-white tale of Parisian infidelity comes from French master Philippe Garrel and unfolds like a point-by-point exercise in the primary language of cinema.

Pierre and Manon are documentary filmmakers (who isn’t?), their marriage crumbling as they grapple with one another’s affairs. Garrel is ruthless in lampooning the emotionally stunted male ego; she comes off a little better.

The movie zings with its payoff about the subject of the film they’re making: a French Resistance fighter who’s sharing his story with their camera.

In this not so golden age of Hollywood, Garrel’s impatient sense of economy and microscopic observations stand as a whole other kind of French resistance.