The spectre of war haunts many of the earlier films of Philippe Garrel, an important avant-garde filmmaker (Marie pour memoire, La Revelateur, etc.), who became part of France's second “New Wave” in the 1970s. Now Garrel has set a thriller, Liberty at Night, during the Algerian war of his father's generation and cast his father, veteran actor Maurice Garrel, in the lead. He plays a man whose involvement with Algerian freedom fighters makes him a target for the French right wing. They succeed in murdering his estranged wife (Emmanuelle Riva), and though he attempts to engage in a new love with an Algerian woman (Christine Boisson), all the while activities of extremist gunmen cast a shadow on his moves. Garrel, who won the Prix Jean Vigo in 1983 for his feature The Secret Child, brings his experimental-film sensibilities to Liberté la nuit as well. Cahier du cinema's critics were among those who hailed the film at the 1984 Cannes festival, writing, “Once more we clearly see Garrel's presence at the very heart of the camera.... The precariousness of the single take, the intuitive filming of events reflected in human faces, the amorous contemplation of looks and bodies: this is what makes Garrel one of the greatest filmmakers of his time.”