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David Beckett

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29-3-2009 17:23

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2009

, Alain Resnais, Anatole Dauman, Claude Sainval, Claudine Merlin, Delphine Seyrig, Drama, DVD, English, Eric Pluet, Eureka, French, Hans Werner Henze, Jacques Saulnier, Jean-Baptiste Thierree, Jean Cayrol, Jean Champion, Jean-Pierre Kerien, Kenout Peltier, Laurence Badie, Lucilla Mussini, Masters of Cinema, Muriel, Nita Klein, PG, Region 2, Sacha Vierny

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Synopsis:
If cinema has its equivalents to the master modernists of music, painting, or literature, then one of the tradition’s foremost practitioners is undoubtedly Alain Resnais — and Muriel, ou le Temps d’un retour (Muriel, or: The Time of a Return) represents one of his earliest, and greatest, triumphs. In Resnais’ two preceding features (the legendary Hiroshima mon amour and Last Year in Marienbad), the master filmmaker pioneered new ways of representing inner reality and emotion; but with Muriel, he merged the vicissitudes of his characters’ personal pasts, and married them to the traumas of the political present — namely, the French war in Algeria.

Resnais’ film is the story of the middle-aged Hélène (portrayed by Delphine Seyrig, of Last Year in Marienbad, Truffaut’s Stolen Kisses, and Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman), an antique dealer located in the provinicial port-town of Boulogne-sur-Mer, who resides amid her wares inside the same flat that serves as her business showroom. An old lover of Hélène’s comes to visit — and soon takes up a more permanent residence within her life, despite the presence of a suspicious, tortured, and sexualised stepson who is haunted by a woman, a name, from his own past in Algiers: “Muriel”.

Scripted by Jean Cayrol, the co-writer of Resnais’ landmark early short film Night and Fog, Muriel is one of the great “family films”, and stands like a cinema landmark as one of the most complex and rewarding films of the 1960s. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present Alain Resnais’ great work for the first time on DVD in the UK.

Special Features:
• New telecine of the film supervised by Alain Resnais. Anamorphic.

• New English subtitles in an exclusive translation.

• The original French theatrical trailer for the film, newly subtitled.

• 44-page booklet containing a new essay by writer B. Kite; another new essay about the film by writer Anna Thorngate; a short piece on the film by Henri Langlois; and a critical “scrapbook” on the film containing excerpts by François Truffaut, Jacques Rivette, and more.

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