Muriel, or the Time of Return

I find it hilarious that Alain Resnais’s monomaniacal films are written by a variety of different screenwriters. And yet they all explore the same material — and in similar ways. (This is not at all a complaint, because I love Resnais’s work and its themes. It’s just hard to believe.)

This film is a tough one. Where the director created vague, shifting, …