Reviews of Muriel
Displaying all 3 reviews
Tobin.
15Nov09
The camera work and editing are brilliant, and it feels much more modern than I would expect of a film made in 1963.
Unfortunately it was lacking in other aspects. Resnais has a very distinct style that worked with Marienbad and Hiroshima, but for some reason it failed to capture my attention the same way the other two did. Perhaps it’s because I felt detached from the characters. Whatever the case, Muriel felt a tad dull, not having the emotional impact of Resnais’ two earlier films.
- Currently 3.0/5 Stars.
Sudarshan R.
22Sep09
For many people, this is Alain Resnais’ best film though it has been inevitably overshadowed by the two films he made before it(HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR, LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD). It’s his first feature in colour and Resnais takes to the possibilites of the use of colour like a seasoned pro.
MURIEL deals with the fallout and the trauma of the Algerian War, the first French feature to do so and it’s use of landscape and space to deal with history has had a great influence on subsequent films such as Haneke’s CACHE. But beyond that, MURIEL is about the passing of time in the present living moment. We see the small town slowly transform into a modernist consumerist landscape as the film advances. And by the time the film ends, things have changed, lives have ended and relationships split apart.
Jimmy Cline
9Jun09
It’s difficult not to draw parallels between Hiroshima Mon Amour and Muriel. Both films combine the somewhat disconnected histories of their characters. And once again, pretty much all of these characters are slaves to memory.
Stylistically, Muriel functions like Hiroshima Mon Amour. Resnais uses what Andras Balint Kovacs has coined “radical continuity” in which the narrative continues to flow in a linear way, while the images arbitrarily flow back and forth in time. Unfortunately with Muriel some of the jump cuts Resnais uses are a little too similar to Godard’s use of them. Hiroshima Mon Amour had distinguished Resnais from the French New Wave, and it’s sort of a shame to see the inimitable brilliance of his style in the early work become replaced with what seems like a subpar facsimile of those early films. The characters are all somewhat loathsome too. It’s difficult to really trust anyone in this film.
I’ve never really considered Resnais an auteur in the traditional sense though, and I can see how works such as Muriel might fail due to the absence of contributors such as Marguerite Duras, Emmanuelle Riva, or Alain Robbe-Grillet, etc. Thankfully, Sacha Vierny’s exquisite framing makes up for some of the films minor failures.
- Currently 3.0/5 Stars.