alr

Muriel
(Muriel, ou le temps d'un retour)

Screening on Film
Directed by Alain Resnais.
With Delphine Seyrig, Jean-Pierre Kérien, Nita Klein.
France/Italy, 1963, 35mm, color, 116 min.
French with English subtitles.

In a technical tour de force, the story of Muriel emerges gradually from the nearly thousand discrete scenes Resnais weaves together with an innovative sound track. Not surprisingly, memory and its emotional undercurrents form the film’s thematic core. Hélène (Seyrig) has a gambling problem. Alphonse (Kérien), an old lover from the past, shows up with a young woman (Klein) he claims is his niece. Hélène’s stepson, Bernard, is obsessed with memories of the war in Algeria, a young girl named Muriel who was tortured to death there, and his friend Robert, who is possibly responsible for the tragedy. Cutting constantly from one character to the next, from night to day, and from location to location, Resnais sculpts a story of deep passion and humanity. His first film in color, Muriel took the International Critics’ Prize at Venice in 1963.

Part of film series

Read more

The Left Bank Revisited:
Marker, Resnais, Varda

Current and upcoming film series

Read more

Jean-Pierre Bekolo, 2024 McMillan-Stewart Fellow

Read more

The Practice (and Other Works) By Martín Rejtman

Read more

Chronicles of Changing Times. The Cinema of Edward Yang

Read more
Gene Hackman crouched beside a toilet with audio equipment

From the HFA Collection...

Read more

Being In a Place. Rediscovering Margaret Tait