Any artist that endeavors to explore the psychological borders between reality and fiction with as much confidence as Alain Resnais has in his career deserves a certain amount of respect apart from their fellow practicioners.

In his early classic “Nuit et Brouillard,” (Night and Fog, 1955) the young French film director managed to create a historical document of unprecedented proportions for the time, evoking powerful emotion through simple pan and dolly shots of Nazi concentration camps accompanied by voice-over dialogue from writer Jean Cayrol — his first of many film collaborations with celebrated writers and thinkers. Then after the release of perhaps his most famous film “Hiroshima, Mon Amour,” (1959) Resnais solidified himself as a filmmaker willing to part with tradition, along with the New Wavers. He forces his audience to accept memory as an active participant in our lives, constantly at odds with the forward movement of time and our deep-seeded psychological scars.

“My American Uncle” (1980) adds another worthy chapter to Resnais documentation of the human psyche,