Because it was so carefully and significantly divided into two parts, I was reminded of the approach that Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul took to his films Tropical Malady (2004) and Syndromes and a Century (2006) while watching Frontier of Dawn. The film juxtaposes the moody, youthful characteristics of French New Wave cinema and couples them with a modern Paris dreamily filmed by the late William Lubtchansky. Garrel uses two sections to tell the story of the two relationships François (Louis Garrel) has with both Carole (Laura Smet) and Ève (Clémentine Poidatz). Carole is an alcoholic actress who meets François one day during a photo-shoot and the two begin a relationship. Unbeknownst to François, Carole is already married. When François attempts to distance himself from Carole, she goes mad, is put into a mental institution and eventually commits suicide after learning François was seeing someone else.
A title card effectively transports us a year later to the second section of the film where François and that someone else, Ève, are beginning a family and making plans for their future. However, Carole begins to haunt François by appearing in his mirror, and she won't leave him alone. Frontier of Dawn essentially becomes a powerful ghost story about lost love. Carole's appearances in the latter section of the movie are presented in a way that made Laura Smet look like she just walked off the set of a Mario Bava movie, but they are rendered in a way that is appropriately haunting and even chilling. The first half of the movie is adequate build-up, but the second half of the movie is when it really begins to shine as François questions the power of a memory over a promising tomorrow.
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