Ben Parker Muriel is a riddle. It may just have been the first art-house movie I ever saw. It was on local TV one day when I was about 18 maybe and I left it on because I was studying French and had been told to watch French movies. I found myself amazed and dumbfounded by the jump-cuts and seeming lack of continuity between scenes. Today, 12 years later or so I've finally seen the whole thing and I feel like I saw a completely different movie to the one I saw last time. I feel I understand who the characters are, what the central mystery is, but I understand very little of the minute by minute goings on of where characters are moving and why. I feel this is a film that intentionally tries to disorient you constantly. Just as you are becoming comfortable in a scene, it will switch completely and never return. It reminds me of a perfectly normal film about four characters and their interrelations that has been sliced up and then recreated anew in the editing room. The characters make reference to dreams and memory, but on this viewing I didn't see it as necessarily a recreation of those things, but as a depiction of disorientation. I found the newsreel section in the middle, which I don't at all remember seeing 12 years ago, particularly important addition, and the whole thing is just as refreshing as it ever was.

Bob Taylor It's about 50 years since I first saw Muriel; in those days the wounds of the Algerian war were still fresh: bodies of Algerian immigrants were found floating in rivers, Sartre's apartment was fire-bombed because he'd supported Algerian independence and so on. Resnais had enough reason to make a film about those troubled days. The trouble with the film has to do with the uneasy juxtaposition of domestic drama (the unhappy love of Hélène and Alphonse) with the ordeal of Bernard and Robert in Algeria, and the dead girl over whom Bernard obsesses. The love story is so much more interesting than the political theme that we are left frustrated with the necessity of ignoring the latter to the benefit of the former.Delphine Seyrig gives a wonderful performance as Hélène; she's always in movement, trying to calm Bernard down, trying to coax some emotion out of the stony Alphonse, on the phone with Claudie cadging some money to gamble at the casino (she's not good about repaying debts). Jean Champion shows up in the second half as Ernest, Alphonse's brother-in-law, trying to bring him back to a sense of his duties to his family. He sings that wonderful song at the lunch party, then launches into an angry tirade about Alphonse's dereliction of duty. It's a superb performance. Nita Klein as Françoise is appropriately prickly, analyzing her options as she sees Alphonse sliding away from her. Claude Sainval is very oily as de Smoke, a man who can't stop thinking about the money he's lost on a derelict building: ''can't even get the doorknobs from it''

dfwforeignbuff Muriel (Muriel ou Le temps d'un retour) Muriel, or The Time of Return 1963 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 & intention, is jumpy; the past obscured by guilt, misperceptions, & missed possibilities. Appearances deceive, things change. As Hélène & Alphonse try to sort out a renewal, everyone seems off-kilter just enough to hint that all cannot end well. Can anyone know another? Delphine Seyrig won a Volpi Cup for best actress at the 1963 Venice Film Festival. The film was nominated for a Golden Lion. I only recently heard about Resnais while reading up on new foreign films not release here in USA (or in limited release) His new film is Les Herbes Folles (Wild Grass) which won a lot acclaim at Cannes & other festivals this year. Muriel is a film that is about thinking about past times. I Interesting exploration of memory/existentialism. It is also a film about madness. Several of the characters appear to be mad ( or more than mildly eccentric in many ways. ) As a film maker I find his French new wave & camera techniques & storytelling very fresh & inventive. This is my first film of his to view I have ordered most all except the one that bombed. (I Want to go home) I guess if you are not one of the art film crowd the movie will be too choppy & weird for you. I think I will watch it again this weekend. I found it intriguing. I loved the opera arias interspersed with the odd ball Avant garde jazz. Strange tale strange music strange story strange film making techniques. I LOVED THIS FILM. One problem on my disc some of the subtitles hung & I missed the conversation in a few scenes then they would come back on again. I am looking for the script to the movie or the full subtitles. Resnais's images are never quite as striking in this film as they were with a limited color palette (in some of his other films) Sacha Vierny creates some gorgeous Antonioni-like shots of landscapes and architecture.

glendafolsom This movie is alright, but no comparison can be made to Last Year at Marienbad. This movie is a little slow at first, and although the shots and techniques are well done, they are not Marienbad or in anyway equal to it.