Muriel (film)

Muriel French Muriel ou le Temps dun retour , literally Muriel, or the Time of a Return is a 1963 French film directed by Alain Resnais. It was Resnaiss third feature film, following Hiroshima mon amour 1959 and LAnne dernire 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 Resnaiss second collaboration with Jean Cayrol, who had also written the screenplay of Nuit et Brouillard Night and Fog 1955.

The story takes place overdays in SeptemberOctober 1962. The screenplay provides specific dates and times for each scene, but these are not apparent in the film. An extended sequence takes place on the first day a section lasting about 45 minutes the introductions of Alphonse and his niece Franoise to Hlne and Bernard, and their first meal together. Another long sequence takes place on the last day the Sunday lunch and its revelations, and the scattering of the principal characters in their different directions. The intervening days are represented in a series of fragmented scenes, which are chronological but seldom consecutive, and the passage of time is blurred.Resnais and Jean Cayrol first discussed the project of Muriel in 1959. They developed the script while Resnais was working on LAnne dernire Marienbad as well as on two other uncompleted projects relating to the then contentious topic of the war in Algeria. Cayrol, though primarily a poet and novelist, was himself interested in filmmaking and editing, and he produced a screenplay for Muriel in which nearly all of the complex editing sequences were outlined. ........

Source: Wikipedia