Alain Resnais-Muriel ou Le temps d'un retour (1963)

Delphine Seyrig gives an award-winning performance in this hauntingly brilliant masterpiece by Alain Resnais. A widow’s life becomes all the more complicated when she is reunited with a former lover. Meanwhile, her troubled stepson struggles to come to terms with his memories of the atrocities he witnessed while serving in the Algerian War. Koch Lorber




In the seacoast town of Boulogne, Hélène sells antique furniture, living with her step-son, Bernard, who's back from military duty in Algiers. An old lover of Hélène's comes to visit - Alphonse - with his niece Françoise; he too is back from Algiers, where he ran a café. Bernard speaks of his fiancée, Muriel, whom Hélène has not met. The narrative, like memory and intention, is jumpy, the past obscured by guilt, misperceptions, and missed possibilities. Appearances deceive, things change. As Hélène and Alphonse try to sort out a renewal, everyone seems off-kilter just enough to hint that all cannot end well. Can anyone know another? (http://imdb.com/title/tt0057336/plotsummary)




Helene (Seyrig) is a widow who sells antiques from the apartment she shares with her eccentric filmmaker stepson, Bernard. Bernard is a veteran of the Algerian War and is haunted by his participation in the torture and murder of a young woman named Muriel. (Product Descr.)




Alain Resnais's 1963 memory film Muriel is a fascinating study of the relationship between the way things are remembered–a blend of fact, dream, and falsification–and the way things really are, with cinema itself the crucial bridge. A woman (Delphine Seyrig), haunted by the memory of her first love, meets up with him again and finds he's a long way from being the man she recalls. (–Tom Keogh - Editorial Reviews - Amazon.com)




Meanwhile, her stepson (Jean-Baptiste Thierrée) is preoccupied with a torture death he witnessed in Algeria. In the case of the former, the present-day truths about Seyrig's old flame are mitigated and complicated by recollections of his old self, and what develops is a timeless portrait of the character more alive than his current actuality. In the latter, the young man's refusal to loosen the atrocity's grip on his life becomes increasingly fruitless as the tragedy only exists on film–and the world has moved on despite the injustice. A challenging work by Resnais in which perspective rapidly changes, the film nevertheless has a subtle, haunting quality in which the richness of the past and the bluntness of the present obscure one another and must be reconciled on celluloid. (–Tom Keogh - Editorial Reviews - Amazon.com)




"Muriel" is one of the greatest films ever made. It is Alan Resnais' ultimate masterstroke. It is better than both "Hiroshima Mon Amour" and "Last Year At Marienbad;" However, it ABSOLUTELY DEMANDS MULTIPLE VIEWINGS. It is a difficult but ultimately magnificent and supremely satisfying film experience. After reading a deeply insightful old article from "Cahiers du Cinema" called "The Misfortunes of Muriel" in which Jacques Rivette and a group of other French critics praise this film to the skies and also Truffaut's little piece about it in his book "The Films in My Life," I decided to give it another try. (amazon.com)




To say that I'm glad I took the time to make that reassessment is an understatment because this is such an amazingly satisfying film, that once all the pieces of the puzzle come togeher in your head in all their subtle details, THERE IS NOTHING ELSE TO COMPARE. You almost feel like you've just seen the birth of cinema. It is nearly flawless in conception and execution and has to be one of the supreme works of art this century. It works on more levels than any other film I can think of, even "Pierrot Le Fou" and "8-1/2." The difference is, almost all of these levels are hidden at first sight. You definitely have to pay UNDIVIDED ATTENTION and CONCENTRATE to start with, especially if you're reading the subtitles in English. Every word is there for a purpose and every shot counts. I'd suggest that you watch it at the bare minimum 4 times before you even presume to make a judgment. (amazon.com)




Here are ONLY A FEW of the things I like about "Muriel:" It uses a thriller form with many comic elements that ultimately becomes a sublime tragedy of modern existence. It has superb realism in acting (Marienbad's Delphine Seyrig in her greatest performance plays the lead) to beautifully contrast with what it's really about: the transcendent aspects of life such as memory and the way it and they (the other aspects) affect the present. Sascha Vierny's beautiful faded-tone, color cinematography seems almost calculated for psychological effect (similar to Antonioni's "Red Desert") and just indescribably poetic. The eerie, haunting modern music(Henze) used on the soundtrack adds an almost science fiction feel to the atmosphere (similar to "Hiroshima" but more grating and full of nervous tension). (amazon.com)




The virtuoso, quick cutting in the middle section is completely chronological in nature but elegantly provides multiple perspectives without distorting things with unnecessary length (since all these things are going on pretty much at the same time). The quick cutting, more than anything else, is what throws most viewers off, but after a few viewings you realize that this quick cutting is precisely one of the supreme sources of beauty in the film's overall design. I cannot recommend this film highly enough for anyone interested in GREAT CINEMA. In fact, even though this is the BEST Resnais film, it isn't exactly the most popular one, and it'll probably take ages before it's available on DVD, and that's why you need to buy the video NOW before they decide to disconinue it. (amazon.com)