Wednesday, March 05, 2014

Resnais from memory

This will be possibly the worst reviews you will read of any of Alain Resnais' films. I will attempt in his honor to write memories I have of some his films without actually re-watching them. Some I haven't seen for 10 or 15 years.

Hiroshima mon amour
He’s an Asian architect

She’s a French actress
Love making and crying
Breakfast on a rooftop
Flashback in a cellar
Contemplation of life and death
And love...

Last Year at Marienbad
Everyone’s at a party in a castle.
People walk around in a quiet black & white world.
Some guy is doing card tricks.
Did any of it ever happen?
Even their shadows don't show up sometimes.

Muriel
Muted colors.
The Algerian war is in the past
Or is it the present?
A young man.
A woman.
The memory of war = depressed characters

La guerre est finie
A revolutionary has many girlfriends.
He attempts to drive across the border.
At one point a woman walking down the stairs suddenly becomes many women.


Je t'aime, je t'aime
Man in a bean bag looking contraption.
Spun through fragments of time.
Mouse on the beach.
Scenes repeat until he goes mad and the machine breaks.

Providence
John Gielgud as a misanthrope with hemorrhoids.
Ellyn Bursten talks in a man’s voice sometimes.
Violence. Anger.
Expensive chateau. 
Reconciliation.

Stavisky
Political scandal
Belamondo in 20’s style
Wears nice suits
Drives a nice car
People talk a lot

Mon oncle d'Amérique
Human and animal behavior
French actors
A beating heart
Rats

Wild Grass
A woman dentist
An older man
A handbag
A shared love of aviation
A promise of romance.