Muriel or The Time of Return (1963) (4K Mastered, Criterion Collection, Restored, Special Edition)

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Alain Resnais’s Muriel, or The Time of Return, the director’s follow-up to Last Year at Marienbad, is as radical a reflection on the nature of time and memory as its predecessor. The always luminous Delphine Seyrig stars as an antique shop owner and widow in Boulogne-sur-Mer, whose past comes back to haunt her when a former lover reenters her life. Meanwhile, her stepson is tormented by his own ghosts, related to his service in France’s recently ended war in Algeria. Featuring a multilayered script by Jean Cayrol, and inventively edited to evoke its middle-class characters’ political and personal realities, the fragmented, emotionally powerful Muriel reminds viewers that the past is always present.

- New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
- Excerpt from the 1980 documentary Une approche d’Alain Resnais, révolutionnaire discret
- Excerpt from a 1969 interview with actor Delphine Seyrig
- Interview with composer Hans Werner Henze from 1963
- New interview with film scholar François Thomas, author of L’atelier d’Alain Resnais
- Trailer
- New English subtitle translation
- PLUS: An essay by film scholar James Quandt