Recensioni degli utenti

If you're looking for a movie that faithfully reduces In Search of Lost Time to 2 hours or so, this isn't it. But then, that's impossible, so you will be frustrated in your search.

What this is is a problematic movie.

If you don't know Proust's 4000 page novel, In Search of Lost Time, I suspect a lot of this movie won't make sense to you. If you do know it, on the other hand, you might be upset that X does not look like Proust's character A, that Y scene was left out, etc.

So, the best way to enjoy this movie - and there is a lot in it to enjoy - is to know Proust's novel well enough so that you can make sense of the movie, but then to forget about it and treat this as a movie that is not trying to film Proust's novel.

I could go on about the way the film jumps from scene to scene based on recollections of the narrator. One might say that that's Proustian, but Proust does not in fact jump from one short scene to the next. So I'll leave that aside.

What this is, for me - and I have seen the movie several times - is a remarkable collection of performances by some of France's greatest actors and actresses - and John Malkovich. The performances by Catherine Deneuve (as Odette; no, she does not look at all like I had imagined Odette from the novel, but she is radiant in this movie), Emmanuelle Béart (as Gilberte Swann; ditto), John Malkovich (Charlus; ditto in spades; he does not look at all like Proust describes Charlus, but he creates a remarkably moving and coherent character), Vincent Perez (Morel; he may look like Proust's Morel, but he gives him more depth), and Marie-France Pisier (Mme Verdurin) are all absolutely first rate, beautiful to watch. They make the film for me. Other characters important in Proust are either reduced to very small roles (the Duke and Duchess de Guermantes, the Prince and Princess de G) or vanish altogether (Swann, Marcel's father). But watching the above great actors and actresses give great performances is, for me, the great value of this movie.

If you want Proust, you'll just have to read it.

But if you want to see some of France's greatest actors and actresses at their best, you could do a lot worse than this movie.

This ambitious attempt to convey the spirit and content of Marcel Proust's A la recherche du temps perdu is largely successful, in my view, for it faithfully reflects the impressionistic, stream-of-consciousness quality of the epic work of literature. There is no logical plot or or narrative arc because Proust's work is something altogether different from the classical novel.

My best guess is that those who dislike this film have never read the books, which is admittedly difficult to do, and for the very same reasons: no hooks, no turning points, nothing remotely resembling the classical notion of "story". The work is basically a pastiche of memories and dreams. What matter above all in the film are the images, and they are extremely well done. Great cinematography and good acting all around. Bravo!

"La viande est bonne!"

nothing could take the place of proust's terrific words, but i felt exhilaration through the whole film. like the comedy in proust's voluminous in search of lost time (as in his writing is so good you have to be joyous), the surrealism, images, direction, and overall focus of the film are great fun - the scene in the brothel where marcel searches for a chair to stand on is precious, as is the slippery audience of the violin and piano recital scene.

a couple of other comments without negating the masterpieceness of the film: acting wise, mazzarella looks like proust and doesn't say much, malkovich steals scenes, and deneuve, beart, perez, and the rest don't act as much as model seriously. except pascal's saint loup's discourse while devouring his dinner, another hoot.

secondly, this is a hell of a challenging film (i'm not fronting like i read proust extensively, i'm only up to within a budding grove). i didn't know what was going on and who was who thanks to time jumps, surrealism, subtitles, and the slew of characters. i enjoyed the film as wonderful filmmaking and comedy. repeated viewings might make things a little clearer. regardless, it's difficult and memorable.

one love to you all, thanks.

The challenge for the filmmaker is to create a visual style that equals Proust's prose. And, I'd guess, that's true of most "adapted" works for the screen...particularly literary masterpieces. For some, just the attempt might be enough. But the film--after a decade--is already dated, stilted and stuffy. I'm not sure you can say the same about Proust's voluminous works. Ultimately, it comes down to the viewer's taste and willingness to go along with Ruiz' project of a dream-like rendering with surrealist effects. I didn't. While Proust's literary attempt to recapture the past may alter the reality he's reconstructing, his exquisite words aren't in the least surreal, they make the reader soar.. The film is beautiful and clever, but it moves at a glacial pace. And while Proust's works are hefty in the page count, for the reader they glide effortlessly. This film is full of artifice, melodrama and quickly forgotten. Which has nothing to do with it's source, an excursion into a life thoroughly lived and beautifully recorded for the ages.

At long, long last. In a year of false hopes and broken promises, here is the real thing, a genuine cinematic masterpiece that after one viewing you've only read the introduction. It's everything that art-house cinema is accused of - elitist, over-intellectual, precious, elliptical, methodically paced, privileging mise-en-scene over virtues like plot or motivated characterisation. It is also a model of literary adaptation that will hopefully, once and for all, put certain practitioners out of business; the most visually astonishing (not in the sense of merely beautiful, but achieving effects you didn't think possible), funny and emotional film in years, and the first new film I've wanted to squeeze to my heart since CHUNGKING EXPRESS.

In one way at least, it's even an improvement on Proust's sublime novel, which frequently breaks off to offer remarkable guides on how to write and to live life. These are indispensable to anyone who wants to exist to the full as a human being, but, uncorrected when Proust died, they are often wearingly repetitive and confused.

Ruiz finds economical, jaw-dropping, incisive ways to show what Proust wanted to say. Because this isn't anything so common as a film of the book - it is an interpretation, a deconstruction, a reimagining. Proust, like Nabokov, sets traps for the unwary reader, and because the narrator seems so convincingly Proustian in the detail, it's easy to confuse him with Proust in the spirit. But M. is a deeply flawed, unreliable narrator who does not always see what's in front of him, who, riven by jealousy, prejudice, snobbery, malady and self-laceration, is not always the most objective observer.

Ruiz emphasises this by foregrounding the seeming differences between himself and Proust as artists: Proust advocates an active, conscious reclamation of ourselves and our pasts; Ruiz, a Surrealist, explores the Unconscious. Proust was the most notorious rewriter in the history of literature, every sentence subjected to the most rigourous scrutiny, yet he died without fully revising Le Temps Retrouve. This leaves the text filled with gaps, omissions, contradictions, 'mistakes', slips, an ultimate loss of control - the perfect ground for a Surrealist excavation.

Ruiz reveals M.'s essential powerlessness, his yielding to the power of the Unconscious; M. thinks he makes a decision to discover the past; Ruiz shows from the very beginning of the film, how he has no choice.

What Surrealism does best is to show the terrifying instability of the seemingly stable, everyday, domestic, fixed. This fits in with Proust's project, because his stepping outside of Time shows how amorphous Time is. A centuries-old society, with huge mansions and manors, inhabited by fixed personnages with fixed names and personalities, in a significant period (the Belle Epoque giving onto World War One) is actually shown to be deeply unstable, perceived as it is though the mind of M., who is constantly changing - his social status his body (through sickness), his self-perception and view of the world and of literature etc.

The opening sequence is masterly illustrative. The real Proust lies in the near-dark in bed, wheezingly ill, reciting his work to his faithful servant, Celeste. Here is an image of wholeness, fact, legend - a great writer writes his great book. But the scene is riven with instability: Proust lies immobile in his bed, while his objects and ornaments move freely around the room.

This is a motif that reverberates throughout the film, the elegant freedom of the dominating, crowding bibelots, and the rigid, sterile, geometrical movements of the people who are supposed to own them. But it also shows a heartening split between mind and body: while the latter lies inert and dying, the former remains vibrant and transformative.

Where to begin with Ruiz's awe-inspiring masterwork? The sublime play with mirrors and cameras, revealing great truths about perception, deception, mediation, objectivity, subjectivity, revelation and concealment? The play of different selves throughout the film, where the monstrously aged, through memory, can return to their former beautiful selves, culminating in an astonishing climactic sequence where M. in his three guises (protagonist/narrator of the film (even this is split, narrated in voiceover by a different person), the author of the book-film, and himself as a young man that allows the other two to exist) as he wanders, Alice-like (a haunting, Surrealist presence thoughout the film) through the classical ruins of time, linked to the impossibility of one, fixed work of art?

The complex analysis of role-play, on the one hand liberating one from a fixed self, on the other repressing one (in terms of social positoin, reputation etc.)? The role of of reenactment in the recovery of the past, and its transmutation through subjective perception? The subtle changes and omissions that Ruiz deliberately employs to interrogate the emphasis of Proust's work? The connection between voyeurism (existing in a society like being imprisoned in a panopoticon), and the necessary observation of the artist to reveal truth?

Ruiz's canny casting, emphasising allusive qualities, e.g. mother and daughter Deneuve, and a hero played by a man with a similar name to their lover/husband? Alain Robbe-Grillet, doyen of formal games in country houses? Edith Scob, Franju muse of broken, fragile beauty, playing dessicated Oriane? the link between the narrator, director Patrice Chereau, and two of the film's stars who have also appeared in one of his films?

The profusion of different artforms which combine to create a moment of such great emotion that I, with M. cried? The teasing play between the protagonist, his creator and this film's creator? The amusing variations on the theme of prostitution? The film's action actually only consists of three elaborate episodes, but the plot floods with the past and the future, the real and imagined, the fictional and historical (or, more correctly, meta-fictional), theory and practice.

It should not be forgotten that there are other, simpler pleasures beloved of historical-film fans - the country-houses with their astonishing avenues; the town mansions with their vast halls; the choreography of the party scenes; the sublime costumes; the elaborate recreation of a time and place. The film is very funny as well as deeply emotional, and though pawns in a Surrealist game, the wonderful actors reveal great depth, although Marcello Mazzerella stands out as a hero more sympathetic than Proust's. But it is Ruiz who is the real star, locating the hidden meaning of the book with startling, disturbing, enigmatic, elegantly polished images, as well as a rare ravishing feel for both nature and artifice.

Well, I had only ever heard of Proust before this film from a Monty Python sketch of the "Summarise Proust competition" (contestants had to summarise In Search of Lost Time once in evening wear and once in bathing suit). I was worried I might hate this film, not knowing anything about Proust other than he wrote a multi-volumed masterwork about time and memory. Then I saw it...wow! I cannot praise Mr Ruiz enough for what he has achieved. The camera work, sets, and lighting are stunning. As Marcel's memory takes him back and forth through his life, the sets and furniture often move around whilst the scene is played out - all emphasising the fragility and hallucinatory qualities of his memory. And there is the music...wow again. It is never intrusive but always creates the perfect background to what is happening on screen. It is not overly sentimental and never tries to force you into feeling emotion (unlike someone like John Williams/S. Spielberg who tries to ram it down your throat). As for plot, many characters and relationships are never fully explained or revealed. Many reviewers seem offended that a film expects them to display attention and interest, but I feel that they're missing the point. Plot is often not the point of the film, instead it is a film about time and memory (hence the title!). Plot is not allowed to dominate the narrative structure, it is the emotions and memory of Marcel. The most offensive thing that some other reviewers seem to find about this film is that it is novel and original - what a crime!! I had never read Proust before I saw this film, but I have a long enough attention span and an open enough mind to appreciate the sheer beauty of its images and the wonderful originality of its style. I urge anyone remotely appreciative of excellent filmmaking to see this film. It might even, as it has with me, motivate you to read the book. I am now three and a third volumes in and it is the greatest and most beautifully written novel I have ever read in my life. Thank you Mr Ruiz and thank you Marcel! SEE THIS FILM NOW!!!

Fans of 8-1/2 and Juliet of the Spirits (Fellini's two most Proustian films by way of Jung) take note: Here's another worthy contender to those two masterpieces. It damn near reaches their level and it sure looks expensive and ultra-authentic, and only time will tell if it holds up as well.

If you've read some Proust (I've only read around a 1000 pages of 'The Guermantes Way' myself and it was at turns the toughest, the most excruciatingly boring and most deeply rewarding reading I've ever inflicted on myself), you will know exactly where this movie is coming from; if you haven't, make plans to read some later, but watch this movie with the knowledge that there is NO STORY IN THE CONVENTIONAL SENSE; it is about how a person's memory works and how and what it chooses to remember and forget and how all these different things effect each other, blah, blah. It aims for the spirit of the books and a taste of what their atmosphere is like, and knows that to even approach this humble end it must, at the very least, begin by pushing the means of the cinema to their limit. It is not stupid enough to think it can equal the intellectual effect of Proustian prose. That would be absurd and impossible.

So how does Ruiz's film fare? Suffice it to say that it does not take long to realize that this not a pretentious film but a deeply thought out, planned, and fully realized one. If it manages to capture the spirit of Proustian investigation, it did not do this easily and don't expect to digest it in one or two viewings. You will certainly be immediately impressed though, I'll tell you that much. Be prepared to ACTIVELY participate rather than be DONE TO. There are constant shifts of time period between the different stages of Proust's life and the fully mobile camera never stands still for your convenience.

The acting is top notch and multi-faceted all the way and the production design is magnificent. Although it certainly looks very expensive, I can't imagine anyone doing a better job with less, except maybe Truffaut (Jules and Jim) or Renoir (French CanCan). There are plenty of distractions along the way, especially the butt-gorgeous Emmanuel Beart for us helpless men of hetero persuasion, not to mention the jaw-dropping, classical beauty of Chiara Mastroianni in her one scene, which she steals. On second viewing, after having just watched the Coen brothers' ultra-subtle and hilariously clever 'Blood Simple,' I did vaguely detect some weaknesses that someone like Eric Rohmer or Rossellini and Scorsese in their prime would have been careful to authenticate to 3 dimensions; but they weren't noticeable enough to put your finger on right away.

I have never seen another Ruiz film before, but I think that the greatest thing he did here was to let Proust's general sense of things, his ultra-cultured neurotic sensibility, become his co-director on the film. I'm sure, at the very least, he made all his actors read the book he was adapting and discussed it with them thoroughly. Just the experience of doing that will enrich the aspirations and imagination of any actor, because Proust's writing is all about going into long analyses of things that may seem trivial at first glance.

All I can say is Ruiz really blew me away on this film and I can't wait to see what else he had up his sleeve all these years that I've been missing his movies.

The memories of the whole life, out of order. It's like time travel for adult with The Doctor. Complex and intelligent, this film is hard to follow really. More like a series of points made. And travel in the past in France.

My wife who read Proust's works in French liked this movie. I haven't read any Proust so I was completely lost and gave up after the first hour watching the DVD. I got tired of bothering her to ask who was who and what was happening but I kept wandering back to the TV to catch parts of it. I don't recommend this film to anyone unfamiliar with the novels. Characters and events move back & forth in time and if that's not confusing enough, sometimes they appear in the past and present at the same time. She later admitted she lost interest at times and fought off dozing due to the slow pageant-like pacing. This is a demanding film that requires your absolute attention, preferably when you're not tired.

I firmly believe the French make the best costume films and this film is a perfect example. Although the handsome period sets and costumes are finely detailed, they are marred by the too dark photography during the indoor scenes. To make matters worse, the white subtitles are hard to read at times because the letters lack black borders making them impossible to read against white or light backgrounds.

The actors seemed good matches for their characters but listening to John Malkovich speak drawling phonetic French is bizarre if not funny.

Film adapted from novels should stand on their own without the viewer having to read the novel beforehand in order to follow it. 'Time Regained' is probably the best example of not being able to follow a film based on a novel, or to make it worse, several novels.

For Proust fans ONLY and those fluent in French due to the bad subtitling.

I have read very little of Proust's great work. I found TIME REGAINED to be a marvelous film, one which further encourages me to read REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST in the future. The movie seems to me to be divided, unintentionally, into three parts. In the first, the photography is exceptional, the use of a moving camera among the best I have seen. This part deserves comparison with the Fellini films mentioned in another comment. However, the second section, which deals mostly with homosexual relationships, sees the imaginative direction almost grind to a halt. In the final section, some wonderful direction takes place again. I think it would have been helpful if the characters had worn name tags (just kidding). The acting was very good, and John Malkovich was outstanding. I saw a video of SWANN IN LOVE (the first volume of the work), and TIME REGAINED was infinitely superior as a filmgoing experience.

Ruiz was quite something back in the 80's, one of the most promising filmmakers I have recently discovered. He made films that throbbed with magic volition, with steps travelling inwards to the place where images are born. It was a dangerous cinema, sultry with the impossible.

Then came the second phase, the period of maturity as it were. More prestigious films starting in the mid-90's, starring actors of standing (Mastroyanni, Huppert, here Deneuve and Malkovich) and with some clout of respectability. Watching these makes me cherish so much more the spontaneous upheaval of Three Crowns or City of Pirates.

So, this is the landmark film of that second phase, a bulky, sprawling film about French writer Marcel Proust and his work. About sprawling deathbed recollections of a life lived, arranged into a story about stories in an attempt to reveal something of their machinations (and ours in weaving them in the mind, before or after the event).

It is a noble effort, with multiple points of interest.

Oh the sets are sumptuous, roomfuls of an impeccably dressed society at the doorstep of disaster—WWI is booming away in close proximity—who mingle in coquetry at the clinking sounds of fine glassware. Vice as the last means of sating a self that can never seem to please itself. Bunuel stuff.

Charmingly amusing tidbits abound, sure—a scene at the funeral, for example, of a decorated general, whose wife takes solace in a stash of letters she discovered written by the deceased brave. We know, of course, that the love pouring out of them was no doubt intended for his secret homosexual lover.

Now all of this as memory, with the narrator present and included in the scene of it. And then a camera—the internal narrator of memory—that introduces the distorted distance of time, this is quite marvelous, as actually reordering reality—furniture move around on whims, our narrator. Fine stuff so far.

But, this really falls with Proust's ideas on the role of fiction, the thinking man so hopelessly removed from the actual, tangible things of life, that he can only find solace in turning them to their spiritual equivalents. Who instead of loving, can only write about love; who wastes the manifold possibilities of 'now!' in tinkering with dead time.

Earlier filmmakers astutely exposed this destructive facet for what it is; a chimera of the mind that traps the soul in old films of memory. Resnais in his fascinating overall project about memory, Antonioni in Blowup, earlier yet it was film noir. Beckett has captured the dissication better than anyone, pungent stuff his. Ruiz by contrast romances the idea as though it was a pleasant stroll. He romances it so earnestly that it drains his entire film.

It is all so fine—like the glassware—so refined and pliable with some grace of apparent form. But a form refined to the point of ornament and sofness, mere trinket that is hollow and devoid of life. No other filmmaker once promising I can think of, matured into so much indifference.

What a read! Started with "Time Regained," noted that I was missing things, went back to page 1 of "Swann's Way" and spent the necessary MONTHS to read the whole work. A major effort -- there are sections that are excruciatingly boring, but offset by the most original descriptive writing I have ever read. And I will read it again! Perhaps in French.

If you really liked the movie and haven't read the books, wait until you see it AFTER reading the books. Once you become familiar with the characters, as described by Proust, you may have problems with the casting of some of the minor characters, but you will no longer be uncertain about their roles.

The whole experience, triggered by the film, was life-expanding.

I think a movie where nothing happens should create a special atmosphere, visualize vague feelings, transfer some kind of poetry, or something - that's where it failed almost completely for me. I liked the main character wandering around in this superficial high-society-world, looking like an owl, but that doesn't carry through such a very long film. I never thought that something where Catherine Deneuve, Emmanuelle Béart and Chiara Mastroianni (that's why I wanted to see this film - I liked her in the great 'Le Journal du Séducteur') are participating could be that terribly boring.

who seem to know their Proust, their film, or both. That said, I found the film excellent, and the fellow who said it was about boring people leading boring lives, well! How boring can it be when you hear the sounds of ordinance whilst turning out in evening clothes trying to keep a sense of civilisation? Although it might seem disjointed, I am given to understand that Proust's writing was hardly linear, so a motion picture presenting his point of view must perforce be somewhat tangled.

TIME REGAINED, which I had the pleasure of seeing on big screen at the Detroit Institute of Arts, is truly beautiful. One gives not a sou whether it looks "expensive" as another (otherwise thoughtful) commentator says.

Speaking of my fellow reviewers, I just got off the Comments list for 28 DAYS LATER. It is striking how seeming intelligent and articulate the people are who went out of their way to see a French film, trusting in sub-titles, as opposed to those who saw another foreign product because it was going to be scary or a "zombie" movie. One can learn from the TIME REGAINED lot, the same as the motion picture.

I am not that well-read. Maybe when I finish reading that Zola novel I have been working on for over ten years, Proust will be next!

I got to see this film in London, and went not expecting much. Amazing, then-- this film could appear in a "Masterpiece Theater" format, afloat as it is in voluptuous costumes, spectacular food, beautiful interiors, gossiping grand dames-- the stuff that makes one keep going back to period costume dramas, hoping to find one this complex and piquant. Its swarming cast of characters have an almost symphonic density, and in the final soiree, in which the violin sonata that defines "Swann's Way", a viewer welcomes each face as it approaches the narrator/camera. A beautiful earlier scene, in which the Proust-character encounters a deranged Baron Charlus (John Malkovich) in the driveway of a spa moves its extended tracking shot in and out of shadows and real-light, and as Ruiz goes on risking lighting-difficulties and getting away with it, you realize this is one lucky movie.

I haven't read Proust, but this film makes me want to buy the books and try.

Unlike many costume dramas that relate the uninteresting intrigues of bygone days, Time Regained has an underlying philosophical thread. The image of Marcello Mazzarella standing, half smiling, taking in the events of his life and trying to make some sense of them is an arresting common motif. Whether the film is true to the book, I can't say but it was certainly an enjoyable dip into high culture.

John Malkovitch was well cast as Charlus and even with some "assistance" on the sound track to improve his French he was much better than in any of his Henry James adaptations.

Yes, this film is true to the spirit of the sgraffito writings and thoughts of Proust, but it is impossible for the viewer to follow an account running thousands of pages without familiarity with all or part of it, in addition to a familiarity with the historical context, and overarching that, an ability to sort out the Proustian characters (Odette, Bloch, Charlus, eg) from the real ones (de Noailles, Montesquiou, de Pougy, Croisset, eg) - in essence moving seamlessly with the film in time through Proust's childhood, deathbed dreams, and soirees, sometimes in overlapping narratives, without conscious effort on the viewer's part. Yes.

Overall it's a very ambitious adaptation of "À la recherche du temps perdu", covering various chunks of the entire novel. The costumes, camerawork, and acting are magnificent. Be warned however that if you didn't read Proust, you'll be quickly lost in the multitude of characters and storylines, and the film will be a pure stream of consciousness (which is inevitable for such a project).

This film of Proust's Le Temps Retrouvé stars thespian "geniuses" Catherine Deneuve, Emanuelle Béart, Italian unknown Marcello something (with dubbed-in voice) as the Narrator, and John Malkovich.

The film is now released, and in fact anyone who gave up reading Proust's masterpiece after the first 50, 100, or 150 pages (out of 2,400) will Retrouver the same Ennui he felt at the time. In fact, Ruiz' Temps Retrouvé re-captures this amazing sense of boredom so brilliantly, that even the most snobbish of littérature-lovers will feel relief from their guilt at not having read the whole Recherche, as they can now "understand" from this film that the book must also be an unblemished process of unrelieved and thankless tedium (that the new film depicts with panache !).

Malkovich's "brilliant" creation as the masochistic, perverted, gay, and twisted Baron de Charlus "renews" this reknowned actor's "huge" repertoire of characters, laying the lie to those who say : "If Malkovich is in it, it's a pile of steaming puppy poo!". Charlus' stumbling American accent (Malkovich's magnificent voice could *hardly* be dubbed. It's probably in his contract, no matter *how* sh*tty it sounds ... ) is perfectly (?) suited to the aristocratic, flowing language of Charlus, previously played by the inferior French Adventure-Film actor Alain Delon.

Ruiz rightly disdains letting his audience know what's going on; all snobbish art-lovers have read Proust haven't they? Why bother Narrating anything, even though the book is about a Narrateur? Everyone who's anyone should know every detail of the plot by heart ... Also, to make the story easier (?) to understand, Ruiz conflates Marcel Proust the Narrator, despite the fact that Proust was homosexual, but not the character. (There's lots of highly fashionable gay Malkovich sex in the film, anyway, so : who cares about the book?)

Ruiz' wonderful (?) device of non-linear storytelling is a perfect (?) rendering of Proust's theories of Time, Memory, and intermittence of the heart. This device is amplified by the director's own psychedelic imagery, which is a delightful (?) version of Proust, and new to the happy few who have read the great work.

Of course, if this is not enough for his audience; if they want to have some idea of the story, and the plot they can always open the pages of the wonderful (?) new Proust comic.