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.

This was Resnais's third feature film, following "Hiroshima mon amour" (1959) and "L'Année dernière à Marienbad" (1961). The first is a classic, the second is one of my all-time favorites. This film, though, does not seem to be widely known and is the less of the three. Not bad by any means, just not on par with the two previous works.

The music from Hans Werner Henze is notable and quite good, really being he highlight of the film for me. Henze is a strange and interesting figure, who worked in Germany, Italy and Cuba, but that is really neither here nor there.

Helene, a widow living in Boulogne, France, makes a living out of selling antique furniture and objects which she uses in her own apartment. The different pieces are part of the decor. She lives with her step-son, Bernard, a recently arrival from the Algerian front. Bernard is obsessed with Muriel, a young woman that was tortured by his army unit. He is now writing his recollection of her, as well as shooting documentary style films that deal with his recent past.

As the story begins, Helene had invited an old lover, Alphonse for a visit. Perhaps looking to relive the days of her first romance, she has asked him to come spend some time with her. To her surprise, Alphonse arrives with a beautiful young woman, Francoise, who he passes as his niece. It is clear from the start they know one another in a different fashion. Taking them in as her guests is a decision that backfires on Helene.

Helene has a weakness for gambling at the local casino. She loses most of the time. She seems to be pressed for money. Her good friend, Roland De Smoke, appears to be a well to do man. She gets money from him, as well as from another friend, Claudie, who holds the mortgage to her apartment, probably to guarantee getting money out of what could be a possible bankrupt Helene.

Alphonse, the visitor, is an enigmatic figure. He walks all over Boulogne making friends with the locals. In fact, Alphonse shows he is hiding from his own painful past. He too, has been living in Algeria managing a sort of club which he is too vague to describe. Helene, who has thought seeing her old love would lead to some change, ends up a lonely figure because nothing turns the way she had hoped.

"Muriel" was Alain Resnais' third full length feature. His popularity among the art house crowd was always strong, yet this film was not seen by a wider audience, as probably the producers wanted it to be. The problem might stem from the way Mr. Resnais cut the film which might lose the viewer if not paying close attention at what is happening on the screen. The scenario was written by Jean Cayrol. The film has a lot of symbolism that will elude a casual viewing. Antique furniture that equates with Helene's loneliness, a town devastated during the war, the memories of the recent Algerian conflict are part of the message Mr. Resanais wanted to project.

In Delphine Seyrig, the director found a muse, no doubt. The actress appeared in the first three films of Alain Resnais. She was a serious actress who collaborated with the likes of Joseph Losey, Luis Bunuel, Marguerite Duras, among others. Her Helene is about the best thing in the film. She gave a detailed performance, giving life to a troubled soul. Jean-Pierre Kerin appears as Alphonse. Jean-Baptiste Thierree is Bernard. Nita Klein, Claude Sainval are seen in the supporting cast.

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