Muriel (1963)

Original title

Muriel, ou le Temps d'un retour

Directed by

Brett Kelly, Alain Resnais

Genre

drama film

Country

France, Italy

Runtime

1h 46m

Rating

6.9 of 10 from 197 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A middle-aged widow in Boulogne-sur-Mer lives with her stepson who recently returned from fighting in Algeria. An old lover visits with his new young girlfriend, stirring up memories and tensions from the past.

contemplativemelancholicfragmentedsubduedtensedisturbingintrospectiveslow-burn

What happens

Muriel (French: Muriel ou le Temps d'un retour, literally Muriel, or the Time of a Return) is a 1963 French psychological drama film directed by Alain Resnais, and starring Delphine Seyrig, Jean-Pierre Kérien, Jean-Baptiste Thiérrée, and Nita Klein. Its plot follows a middle-aged widow in Boulogne-sur-Mer and her stepson—recently returned from military service in the Algerian War—who are visited by her ex-lover and his new young girlfriend. It was Resnais's third feature film, following Hiroshima mon amour (1959) and Last Year at Marienbad (1961), and in common with those films it explores the challenge of integrating a remembered or imagined past with the life of the present. It also makes oblique reference to the controversial subject of the Algerian War, which had recently been brought to an end. Muriel was Resnais's second collaboration with Jean Cayrol, who had also written the screenplay of Night and Fog (1956). (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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