Le temps retrouvé, d'après l'oeuvre de Marcel Proust

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!"

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.

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 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.