Muriel
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Movie Reviews of Muriel
Movie Review: A Time-Specific Film-Collage that is also a Classic
Summary: 5 Stars
I have seen "Muriel" many times and continue to be awed by its ambiance, its exploration of secrets, and its fantastic soundtrack. I love the disjointed, abruptly edited, non-linear, everywhere-at-once quality of this movie. It is a sort of "cut-up" film, a collage representative of the space-age early 1960's. [Although this may seem like an obscure connection/comparison--"Muriel" was made around the same time that WS Burroughs and Brion Gysin were in Paris experimenting with the controversial cut-up method in literature.] Similarly to the other Amazon reviewers of this work, I see "Muriel" as a study of the distortion of reality via memory, as well as the effects of loss and alienation upon one's perception of relationship. However, the film is so visually rich--and in combination with the soundtrack so arresting--that plot becomes irrelevant, and in the end this movie defies analysis. I willingly surrender to "Muriel's" atmosphere of kaleidoscopic confusion. There are so many disconnected moments and seemingly innocuous images in this film that I treasure--be it the globular glass coffee pot on a stand that Hélène brings to the dinner table for her guests to enjoy with their spiked dessert; sinister Bernard riding on a white horse along a cliff by the sea; Helene borrowing money from her skeptical friend so she can go gambling at the local casino; the bleak and yet strangely comfortable scenes of the cafes and bars of Boulogne; the haunting song "Déjà" which reminds us that "life is short, times flies." However, Resnais dwells on no one scene for too long, always moving on to the next jarring contradiction. Ultimately, what I love about "Muriel" is the fact that, like any great work of art, I will never completely understand it--it will always be a mystery. Like a puzzle from which a few pieces are permanently missing.
--Stephen C. Bird, author of "Hideous Exuberance: A Satire"
Movie Review: A challenging examination of the way the past distorts the present
Summary: 5 Stars
MURIEL, the film Alan Resnais made after LAST YEAR IN MARIENBAD, is an even more complex exploration of time and memory, but unlike it's predecessor, whose surrealistic canvas allowed the viewer freedom to provide a subjective context, MURIEL is a film with a specific point of view..one that has meaning and relevance to us as humans, but is presented in an unconventional and challenging way. MURIEL requires an open mind and patience on the part of the viewer, and I agree with the reviewer who stated that the film deserves multiple viewings to be fully appreciated. The technique of jump cutting that builds to a crescendo in this film is disorienting and disconcerting on first experience, but the more you see MURIEL, the more you understand why it was done and the pure brilliance and power of it's effectiveness. This is the way our minds process memories and experience life..not in a smoothly coherent, temporally linear fashion, but in an wildly incongruent succession of images and thoughts, that sometimes illuminate or provide insight, but most often, cloud the truth. Taken piecemeal, these visual non sequiturs can be disorienting or confusing, but when placed in proper context, they create a mosaic that is both meaningful and beautiful. MURIEL is a haunting meditation on how we deal with loss..the loss of the innocence and ideals we harbor in our youth after they are ravaged by time and the cruel realities of existence. It's a complex examination of the way in which the past in the form of subjective memories, color our present thought processes and affect our actions. This is a great film with a great performance by it's lead actress Delphine Seyrig. Required viewing for the serious cinephile.Movie Review: Haunting memories...
Summary: 5 Stars
The screenplay for Alain Resnais's "Muriel"(1963) was being worked on around the same time as his film "Last Year at Marienbad"(1961), though the movie was to come out a couple of years later once the Algerian civil war was over. This was also to be Resnais's first color film. "Muriel" is about Helene(Delphine Seyrig) who is an antique dealer who meets up with a past lover(Jean-Pierre Kerien), and about her stepson, Bernard (Jean-Baptiste Thierree), who is tormented by a girl named Muriel whom he participated in torturing in Algeria. A predominant theme is that people can never really know others since everyone is isolated and living in worlds of their own. Also important is how memories continue to affect and haunt the present as Bernard can't escape the memory of Muriel, and how this affects the people around him. The movie has a staccato, cubistic quality with rapid jump cuts interspersed with eerie music which emphasize the underlying agitation each of the characters carries with them as they struggle with their feelings and memories about their world. The town itself is recovering from the ravages of WWII and is just as scarred as the inhabitants. Everything is in a start of flux as people are trying to move on with their lives. The people come and go just as the antique furniture in Helene's apartment comes and goes to new respective owners. Even as everything is in a state of transition the stains of memories linger and continue to haunt the present.
This 2007 DVD also has an informative interview with Francois Thomas, author of "L'atelier d'Alain Resnais", and has English subtitles with the film having an aspect ratio of 1.66:1 with audio in Dolby Digital.
Movie Review: a meditation on the past and how it influences our lives..
Summary: 5 Stars
Alain Renais, often considered an outsider of sorts, crafts his movies like a poet crafts his poems.. He seems to like to play with the notion of time and its meaning.. I noticed this in 'Hiroshima mon amor' and now again in 'muriel'.. it is a beautiful approach to making movies... i was so taken aback by the fluidity of the cuts from one place to another one moment to another it feels modern and yet it challenges us in a very basic way.. The characters in this movie appear to be struggling with continuing their lives in the face of past traumas - yet this message is one we can all take to heart (aren't we all in a similar boat?).. My favorite aspects of this movie are the camera shots.. often evoking modern photography.. and the seemless pacing and editing - which make this one of the most powerful movie experiences that i have seen... Now i hope that 'last year at marienbad' will be released on dvd...Movie Review: Muriel
Summary: 5 Stars
Made in the wake of his masterful "Last Year at Marienbad"(sadly not yet on DVD), Resnais's cinematic puzzle concerns memory, regret, self-identity, and the psychological effects of war. In a complicated but wholly fascinating plotline, no one appears to be exactly what they say they are, and Resnais exploits the tensions with cunning effectiveness, especially when he introduces Alphonse's mysterious "friend," de Smoke (Claude Sainval). Perhaps the film's most radical departure from convention is the director's unconventional editing method, which creates jarring disunities in time and space, thus reinforcing the emotional turbulence on-screen. One of the first films in France to deal squarely with the Algerian War--for which it was censored--"Muriel" is a captivating story about people trying to reclaim the past in order to reshape their present.
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