CRITERION COLLECTION: MURIEL OR THE TIME OF RETURN

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 it's predecessor. The always luminous Delphine Seyrig (Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles) 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 it's middle-class characters political and personal realities, the fragmented, emotionally powerful Muriel reminds viewers that the past is always present.