- Hiroshima, Mon Amour
One of the current programs at the University of Chicago’s Doc Films is a partial retrospective of work by the great French filmmaker Alain Resnais, who passed away in March. The series, which wraps up Wed 6/4 with a screening of the recently restored Je t’aime, Je t’aime; in advance of Doc’s presentation, the Gene Siskel Film Center screens the film on Mon 5/26, which gives Chicago moviegoers double the chance to catch one of the director’s rarest films. The partial retrospective was especially interesting because it forewent the director’s two most canonical films, Hiroshima, Mon Amour and Last Year at Marienbad, giving Resnais novices the opportunity to get better acquainted with his work. For the past few weeks the Reader‘s film sections has been particularly captivating thanks to the great archive capsule reviews of Resnais’s films. And on the Bleader Ben Sachs has been posting some great stuff about the director.
- Muriel (1963) According to Dave Kehr, this “surpasses his better-known Last Year at Marienbad and Hiroshima, Mon Amour in terms of intricacy of construction and sensitivity to shades of memory and regret,” and though I don’t necessarily agree, Muriel is still worthy of being considered as inventive and elegantly structured as anything he’s made. It’s sort of a touchy film, but its enigmatic themes and self-reflexive nature reward repeat viewings.
