If we hold it to be true that "cinema is life with all the boring parts cut out", then "Muriel" takes it further by being cinema with all the boring parts cut out. What amounts to quite possibly a four hour movie condensed and compounded into a pristine narrative about memory and guilt, Alain Resnais' post-Marienbad movie shows a remarkable talent in plugging directly into the viewer's senses in unforgettable ways. Emphasis on the unforgettable.
Ever had those moments where you were falling asleep during a movie, and then something important happens and you suddenly snap awake and fret over whether you may have missed something? Yeah, that's every single cut in this movie. "Muriel" feels less like the full cinematic experience and more like all of the parts you remember after you haven't seen it for some years. That is not to say, however, that it is missing anything in its structure, including story and character development. It's all there, it's just compounded: dialog continues after the scene has changed, reaction shots are cut in half by moving on to the next reaction, establishing shots are also the first action shots of the scene, and the score is minimalized in, well, the maximum way possible (sometimes a single note stands in for an entire emotion). Same thing works with the writing and how it's blocked. Characters get upset and in the next frame are smiling. Someone asks where Bernard is and the next cut he's directly with them, having been there for several hours. The few days over which this story take place could just as easily be hours or years, and characters are constantly reading the news and never responding to it. Time and space in this movie are altered in very significant and unusual ways--in my opinion, brilliant ways.
Leave it to the director of Night and Fog and Hiroshima, Mon Amour to come up with something like this. What would seem for the most part to be a story about fractured relationships in a small French town is also an essay on the culpability of the French character in WWII and Algiers. The title refers not to a character, as it seems at first, but to Bernard's victim. Alphonse's statements about being a part of the resistance are later proved false, showing that even in his attempt to make amends with his ex-lover, he cannot stand up for his own liability in the war-efforts of a past generation. The only woman who cares for both of them (Helene, Bernard's step-mother and Alphonse's ex-lover), truly cares, has only a tenuous relationship with either, and can't even remember if she truly did love Alphonse while also being emotionally stuck on a fire that burned down her house, killing Bernard's father.
This is a spectacular movie in pretty much all respects. It's not for the easy-going film-goer, as it keeps a very brisk pace and thus can be hard to keep up with if one is not paying attention. However, it is so securely set in its writing, mise-en-scene, and editing, that it's not necessarily difficult to understand. A must for any fan of Resnais, French cinema in general, or those who are attracted by the relationship between cinema and memory--especially emotional memory.
--PolarisDiB
Ever had those moments where you were falling asleep during a movie, and then something important happens and you suddenly snap awake and fret over whether you may have missed something? Yeah, that's every single cut in this movie. "Muriel" feels less like the full cinematic experience and more like all of the parts you remember after you haven't seen it for some years. That is not to say, however, that it is missing anything in its structure, including story and character development. It's all there, it's just compounded: dialog continues after the scene has changed, reaction shots are cut in half by moving on to the next reaction, establishing shots are also the first action shots of the scene, and the score is minimalized in, well, the maximum way possible (sometimes a single note stands in for an entire emotion). Same thing works with the writing and how it's blocked. Characters get upset and in the next frame are smiling. Someone asks where Bernard is and the next cut he's directly with them, having been there for several hours. The few days over which this story take place could just as easily be hours or years, and characters are constantly reading the news and never responding to it. Time and space in this movie are altered in very significant and unusual ways--in my opinion, brilliant ways.
Leave it to the director of Night and Fog and Hiroshima, Mon Amour to come up with something like this. What would seem for the most part to be a story about fractured relationships in a small French town is also an essay on the culpability of the French character in WWII and Algiers. The title refers not to a character, as it seems at first, but to Bernard's victim. Alphonse's statements about being a part of the resistance are later proved false, showing that even in his attempt to make amends with his ex-lover, he cannot stand up for his own liability in the war-efforts of a past generation. The only woman who cares for both of them (Helene, Bernard's step-mother and Alphonse's ex-lover), truly cares, has only a tenuous relationship with either, and can't even remember if she truly did love Alphonse while also being emotionally stuck on a fire that burned down her house, killing Bernard's father.
This is a spectacular movie in pretty much all respects. It's not for the easy-going film-goer, as it keeps a very brisk pace and thus can be hard to keep up with if one is not paying attention. However, it is so securely set in its writing, mise-en-scene, and editing, that it's not necessarily difficult to understand. A must for any fan of Resnais, French cinema in general, or those who are attracted by the relationship between cinema and memory--especially emotional memory.
--PolarisDiB