“…but the sharp violin/piano jazz-horror score alerts us right away that things aren’t going to work out…”

This description of the music, for me, is unnerving because of its inexactness. Just because a music may be discordant or extreme doesn’t automatically fit it into the category of jazz or horror-movie music. I felt, generally, the underscoring ran counter to the emotional content of the film, with great effect. I think this was intentional. It did not feel horror-inducing or jazz-like.

I did not come to the film wondering “are things going to work out?” The very look of the film with its granular, stark contrasts and the unadorned language used by the characters could never amount to anything as immoderate as happiness.

“…as the film morphs from classical, almost slight romance to a serious meditation on love, faith and eternity…”

You’re speaking in the context of “for the viewer, the film morphs from classical, almost slight romance…”. The viewer. Being familiar with Garrel’s work, I felt just the opposite. As you said, this is one of Garrel’s more accessible films and knowing his work and its discipline, Frontier felt more like a shift from a serious meditation on love, etc. to a slight romance. The ending is quite literal. Whereas, in a film like “Regular Lovers”, I thought the suicide at the end, with its dreamy quality, was enshrouded in the metaphorical, the transcendent. That’s simply an example of how Frontier worked on a much more literal, take things as they are, level.

“Garrel tells us twice that Francois is Jewish”

While the fact of Francois’ Jewishness was subtly toyed with in the film, critically introducing this idea of the “shiksa” archetype seems pushy and extraneous to the world of the film. I felt, to the credit of its accessibility, the political was absent from Frontier.